A landmark legal case decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1896, which upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation and the principle of “separate but equal” facilities, establishing the legal precedent that racial segregation was permissible as long as facilities for African Americans were deemed equivalent to those for white Americans. The Plessy v. Ferguson decision sanctioned racial discrimination and segregation in public accommodations, transportation, and other areas, and remained in effect until it was overturned by the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.