Louisiana Civil Rights Museum

The old Louisiana Supreme Court building at 400 Royal Street holds the courtroom where Homer Plessy's case began its path to the Supreme Court and the doctrine of "separate but equal." Plessy v. Ferguson, decided in 1896, defined American segregation for 58 years until Brown v. Board of Education overturned it. In 2021, the building reopened as the Louisiana Civil Rights Museum. The courtroom where Plessy lost is now the room where his story is told from the other side. The museum traces civil rights history in Louisiana from the Code Noir through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the ongoing struggle for equity. New Orleans was the South's largest city at the start of the Civil War and the largest port, exporting most of the nation's cotton and farm products. The wealth that built the French Quarter and the commerce that made Royal Street a city spine moved through institutions that enforced racial law. This building was one of them. The museum does not ignore that fact. It opens the door to the room where it happened and walks you through what came before and what came after. Check hours and admission at louisianacivil rightsmuseum.org. Go because the room is real, the bench is still there, and the story does not end in 1896.