#OnThisDay in 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-1 in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial segregation on railroads or similar public places was constitutional, forging the “separate but equal” doctrine that remained in place until 1954. In his dissent that would foreshadow the ruling six decades later in Brown v. Board of Education, Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote that “separate but equal” rail cars were aimed at discriminating against Black Americans. “In the view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens,” he wrote. “Our Constitution in color-blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law … takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.” mississippitoday.org/2024/05…

#OnThisDay in 1884, crusading journalist Ida B. Wells, an African-American native of Holly Springs, Mississippi, was riding a train from Memphis to Woodstock, Tennessee, where she worked as a teacher, when a white railroad conductor ordered her to move to another car. She refused. When the conductor grabbed her by the arm, “I fastened my teeth in the back of his hand,” she wrote. The conductor got help from others, who dragged her off the train. In response, she sued the railroad, saying the company forced Black Americans to ride in “separate but unequal” coaches. A local judge agreed, awarding her $500 in damages. But the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed that ruling three years later. The decision upended her belief in the court system. “I have firmly believed all along that the law was on our side and would, when we appealed it, give us justice,” she said. “I feel shorn of that belief and utterly discouraged, and just now, if it were possible, would gather my race in my arms and fly away with them.” Wells knew about caring for others. At age 16, she raised her younger siblings after her parents and a brother died in a yellow fever epidemic. She became a teacher to support her family. mississippitoday.org/2024/05…

#OnThisDay in 1960, nearly 1,000 Black protesters marched 10 miles through the rain and sleet to the downtown airport in Greenville, South Carolina, to protest its segregation policies and its mistreatment of Jackie Robinson, the first Black player in @MLB. Months earlier, Robinson had come to speak at an NAACP banquet, where he encouraged Black Americans. As he left the airport that night, he sat with NAACP leader Gloster Current in the “Whites-only” waiting room at the airport, where Robinson signed autographs. The airport manager ordered them to move to the “Colored” waiting room. They said no. When the manager brought a police officer, they responded that they had a legal right to stay where they were and refused to move. After the incident, Robinson complained to the NAACP’s Thurgood Marshall, whose office was already pursuing a case against the airport. In the future, Robinson said, “I hope that we can walk in the airport and sit down and enjoy ourselves.” During their march, protesters sang “America the Beautiful” and other songs in what they called their “prayer pilgrimage.” As they arrived at the airport, they were met by a 300-man white mob that included Klansmen. The protesters continued, and 15 of them entered the airport. “We will no longer make a pretense of being satisfied with the crumbs of citizenship while others enjoy the whole loaf only by the right of a white-skinned birth,” the Rev. C.D. McCullough of Orangeburg declared. The walls of segregation soon fell at both airports. mississippitoday.org/2024/01…

Between 1916 and 1970, more than 6 million Black Americans moved from the South to the North, the West and the Midwest, changing the landscape of the nation. Before “The Great Migration,” more than 90% of Black Americans lived in the South and only 20% lived in urban areas. By 1970, more than 80% of Black Americans lived in cities. In her Pulitzer Prize winning book, “The Warmth of Other Suns,” Isabel Wilkerson detailed how Black Americans left “the terror of Jim Crow” for “an uncertain existence in the North and Midwest.” In his book, “The Promised Land,” Nicholas Lehmann called this migration “one of the largest and most rapid mass internal movements in history.” The migration contributed to an explosion in creative arts, including the Harlem Renaissance and blues music in Chicago. In his book, “Diversity Explosion,” William Frey wrote that a reversal has since taken place, which “began as a trickle in the 1970s, increased in the 1990s, and turned into a virtual evacuation from many northern areas in the first decade of the 2000s.” mississippitoday.org/2023/12…

#OnThisDay in 1912, civil rights lawyer R. Jess Brown was born in Kansas. Fired for demanding equal pay as a Black teacher in Mississippi, he became a lawyer & represented James Meredith in his successful bid to enter @OleMiss. The documentary, “The Defenders,” spotlights the work of Brown, Carsie Hall & Jack Young Sr., who dared to handle civil rights cases in Mississippi. mississippitoday.org/2023/09…