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City Council votes to rename part of Press Street after Civil Rights activist

The official Plessy v. Ferguson monument is on Royal Street

Today City Council unanimously voted to rename Press Street between Chartres Street and St. Claude Avenue in the Bywater after Homer Plessy.

Louisiana-born Plessy was the plaintiff in the 1892 Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case, which he lost. The result of that case deemed “separate-but-equal” segregationist laws as constitutional (but were later overturned by Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954).

A plaque dedicated to Plessy and his efforts sits on the corner of Press and Royal Street, near the station where Plessy was arrested for protesting segregated railroad cars.

According to the Advocation, Councilwoman Nadine Ramsey, who represents the Bywater neighborhood, championed the name change of this portion of Press Street.