Louisiana gov will pardon Plessy v. Ferguson freedom rider

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana’s governor says he will posthumously pardon Homer Plessy, whose 1892 arrest  for refusing to leave a “whites only” railroad car wound up putting “separate but equal” into U.S. law. Gov. John Bel Edwards says he wants relatives of both Plessy and the judge whom he sued in “Plessy v. Ferguson” to participate. Plessy’s purchase of a ticket and his seating choice were part of an effort by an 18-member civil rights committee to overturn the segregationist law. Instead, it led to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed a half-century of segregation. Edwards says he wants proper attention drawn to removing a conviction for something that should have never been a crime.