[MarignyBywater] Thursday, February 12 --> A Celebration of Progress

[Richard Read]

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*A CELEBRATION OF PROGRESS: Thursday, February 12 at 2pm
Unveiling the long-awaited historical marker for the arrest site of Homer
Plessy*

*New Orleans, LA* –The New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, The Crescent
City Peace Alliance, and the Plessy & Ferguson Foundation invite you to *A
Celebration of Progress at the corner of Press Street and Royal Street on
Thursday, February 12 at 2PM*. Community members will honor the successes of
the civil rights movement on this special day – both Abraham Lincoln's
bicentennial and the NAACP's centennial – by unveiling an historical marker
at the site of Homer Plessy's arrest in 1892 and announcing the creation of
the Plessy and Ferguson Foundation for Education and Reconciliation. The
event will feature appearances by *Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Bernette
Johnson, Tulane professor Lawrence N. Powell, UNO professor and longtime
NAACP officer Raphael Cassimere, as well as performances by students from
NOCCA, Douglass Senior High School and McDonough #35 Senior High School*.

The 1892 arrest of Homer Plessy was part of an organized effort by The
Citizens Committee to challenge Louisiana's Separate Car Act. While many
consider the Civil Rights movement to have begun in the 1950's, the fact is
that communities were organizing for equal rights much, much earlier. The
Citizen's Committee's work culminated with the Supreme Court case Plessy vs.
Ferguson, which cemented in law the concept of "separate but equal".

Keith Plessy and Phoebe Ferguson, descendants of the players in the Supreme
Court Case, will announce the *Plessy and Ferguson Foundation for Education
and Reconciliation*. The foundation will work to create new ways to teach
the history of civil rights and racial tolerance by understanding this
historic case and its effect on the American conscience.

A brief reception will follow.
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