In New Orleans in 1892, Homer Plessy boarded a train car designated only for white passengers. Plessy, who was a mixed-race Black man, purposely violated a Louisiana segregationist law in an act of civil disobedience. Police arrested him and brought him to trial. He appealed, and his case went to the Supreme Court in 1896.

As the court formed their arguments in Plessy v. Ferguson, Justice John Marshall Harlan considered the rights and social privileges of Chinese passengers. At the time, Chinese people could not naturalize as US citizens, nor could they emigrate freely. Despite these restrictions, they could still ride the “whites-only” cars. For Harlan, this inconsistency proved that Louisiana’s law denied the rights of some US citizens, including those who were Black.

Much of the formation and history of the South involved slavery and segregation. Asian Americans held uncertain placement in a racial hierarchy that placed white people at the top and Black people at the bottom. They faced different treatment across the South during the Jim Crow era. Asian Americans had to make decisions for their safety in segregated spaces.

While some felt comfortable in “whites-only” areas, others opted for the “colored” areas. Before the civil rights era, Asian Americans played a key role not only in questioning and exposing problems of segregation, but in advocating for their own rights and the rights of other people of color.

In this module, we will learn about how Asian Americans navigated school segregation and laws against interracial marriage. Furthermore, we will explore how Asian Americans participated in the civil rights movement across the South.