This past week I gave a lecture in a course taught by Prof. Norm Yetman of the Kansas University American Studies Department. The course is a new one designed to help familiarize students with the background and details of Brown v. Board of Education, whose 50th anniversary is being celebrated this year. My particular assignment was to lecture on an earlier case from the late 19th century, Plessy v. Ferguson.

Since I’m far from being an expert in the history of constitutional law and because the course enrolls students with a wide diversity of backgrounds and knowledge, I spent much of the week preparing for the lecture. I always find such preparation a great experience because I learn a great deal about things that interest me and that I wouldn’t otherwise study in such detail. Agreeing to give a lecture like this one forces me to educate myself as well as my students.

Historians generally cite Plessy as the case that ushered in the era of “Jim Crow” laws in the United States. These are the laws that legalized segregation and gave legislative approval to making blacks second-class citizens.

The Plessy case itself was fairly simple. Louisiana passed a statute making it illegal for whites to sit in train cars designated for blacks and for blacks to sit in train cars designated for whites. The only exception was for drunken whites who also could be forced to sit in black cars. Homer Plessy, a New Orleans “octoroon” (someone with one black grandparent) deliberately violated this law by purchasing a first-class train ticket, sitting in the whites only car, and informing the conductor that he was, in fact, black. The conductor asked him to leave the car and when he refused, had him arrested.

The penalty for Plessy’s action was a fine of $25 or 20 days in the county jail. Homer Plessy deliberately set out to be arrested for sitting in the wrong car. In fact, Plessy didn’t look black and the conductor didn’t know he was black until Plessy told him. He could easily have “passed” for white, had he wanted to do so. Further, according to the trial records, Plessy was dressed “respectably,” something not surprising since Plessy was a successful and well-educated tradesman.

Instead, Plessy undertook his illegal act as part of a plan conceived by a group of prominent New Orleans black professionals who wanted to have this unfair segregationist law put to a test. The case went first to trial and appellate courts in Louisiana and, ultimately to the United States Supreme Court. In all of these courts, Homer Plessy lost. The Louisiana segregation law was upheld and the case signaled that “separate but equal” accommodations for black Americans were to be legal. It was not until 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education, another test case, that the Plessy doctrine was finally fully defeated.

What is so interesting about the Plessy case is the people involved and the risks these men took. Homer Plessy and all those involved in the case, including the white New York lawyer for Plessy, Albion Tourgee, were early advocates for civil rights at a time when such advocacy was extremely dangerous.

By the time Plessy was brought to court, the United States, particularly the South, had fully reverted to its pre-Civil War racism. The Ku Klux Klan was going strong. Although Plessy was decided only 30 years after the Civil War ended and after the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution, it is clear that the lessons of that war and the aspirations codified in the post-Civil War amendments were either forgotten or were never really taken to heart by many Americans.

What I find most interesting about the Plessy case is how important that case was in eventually leading to Brown v. Board 60 years later. Historians tend to see the case simply as a defeat for civil rights in the United States. Certainly, that it was. But it was also an example of the willingness of some Americans, both black and white, to challenge racist laws, even in a highly unfriendly social climate.

Recently, activist lawyer Jules Lobel published a book on why losing cases can often be as important as winning them. Lobel’s point is that if one doesn’t bring an important case because the odds of winning are slim, then one doesn’t get a chance to lay the groundwork necessary for a later case to be brought when the chances of winning may better.

It’s fairly clear from the historical record that neither Homer Plessy nor Albion Tourgee nor their many supporters thought they had much chance of winning. They also knew that there were real personal dangers in bringing the case in the first place. But bring it they did, and in so doing, over the short term, they confirmed that America had not yet reached the point when blacks could escape the stigma of racism. But they also created an important step in the road that eventually led to the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

I think that this year when we celebrate the victory in Brown and remember the great heroes of that case we should also not forget the brave men and women who fought these battles before 1954 and who helped to make Brown possible, even in their losses.

Mike Hoeflich, a professor in the Kansas University law school, writes a regular column for the Journal-World.