ABSTRACT

Railroad tracks run along Press Street in the Upper 9th Ward of New Orleans. Where Press intersects with Royal Street, an old warehouse with graffiti sits on one side of the track. Overgrown patches of grass line the other side. To the everyday observer, it appears to be a street corner forgotten long ago. Yet this is the place where Homer Plessy, an Afro-Creole citizen of New Orleans, was arrested on June 7, 1892, for refusing to vacate his seat in a "whites only" railcar (Michna, 2009).