Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, General Research and Reference Division

Rodolphe Lucien Desdunes, Nos hommes et notre histoire (Montreal: Arbour & Dupont, 1911)

Arthur Estèves (1835?-1906) was a Haitian immigrant who settled in Louisiana long after the major waves of Haitian immigration. A successful sail and awning maker, Estèves became president of the board of trustees of the school for orphans established by Marie Couvent. He was also president of the Comité des Citoyens (Citizens Committee), formed in 1890 by Creoles of color to fight against racial discrimination. The committee was particularly active in denouncing segregation in public transportation and sent some of its members to test the Jim Crow laws by riding in white-only cars. One of them, Daniel Desdunes was arrested when riding from Louisiana to another state. He was tried but acquitted on the ground that the state law was incompatible with federal law. Homère Adolphe Plessy -- seven-eighths white and one-eighths black-- was the man chosen to ride in a white only car within the state. He was arrested and jailed. Plessy went to court to contest the segregationist law but was found guilty by Judge Ferguson. In 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson went to the United States Supreme Court, which declared that separate accommodations were not unconstitutional.