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Plessy was a loss in court and one of many small steps towards justice
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By Mike Cuenca | March 2, 2004
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In his insightful March 3 column on Plessy v. Ferguson, Mike Hoeflich
understated several important truths about socio-political activism.
There
has never been a time in human history when it was safe to stand
against the social status quo. Even if one's life isn't the risk, one's
livelihood, health, property and liberty likely will be. That was true
then. It's true now.
People like Plessy are not only in civil rights, but in all social movements.
People
like Plessy know they'll likely lose their battle and their war and
that they'll face an unknown severity of risks: which shows their
courage. They know they'll likely only be beaten down, perhaps lose
everything they have—even their life—and that they realistically have
only the slimmest hope of seeing justice done.
Plessy wasn't the
first, nor the last. His name is attached to an important legal
decision, that's why he's memorable. But for every Homer Plessy or Rosa
Parks, there are multitudes of un-celebrated heroic activists who've
fought and lost, only to be forgotten by history.
Neither Plessy
nor Brown v. Topeka would have ever made it to the U.S. Supreme Court
if not for many good, decent, upstanding—and very wrong—citizens,
judges and politicians whose ideology rendered them desperate to fight
as long as possible to defend obvious and indefensible injustices.
Look
around today. Cases like Plessy abound in the courts. People like
Plessy are all around you. People like those who fought against Plessy
are all around you.
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