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Louisiana鈥檚 governor on Wednesday posthumously pardoned Homer Plessy, the Black man whose arrest for refusing to leave a whites-only railroad car in 1892 to protest racial segregation sparked the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that cemented 鈥渟eparate but equal鈥� into law for half a century.

The state Board of Pardons in November recommended the pardon for Plessy, who boarded the rail car as a member of a small civil rights group hoping to overturn a state law segregating trains. Instead, the protest led to the 1896 ruling known as Plessy v. Ferguson, solidifying whites-only spaces in public accommodations such as transportation, hotels, and schools for decades.

At a ceremony held near the spot near where Plessy was arrested, Gov. John Bel Edwards said he was 鈥渂eyond grateful鈥� to help restore Plessy鈥檚 鈥渓egacy of the rightness of his cause 鈥� undefiled by the wrongness of his conviction.鈥�

Keith Plessy, whose great-great-grandfather was Plessy鈥檚 cousin, called the event 鈥渢ruly a blessed day for our ancestors 鈥� and for children not yet born.鈥�

Since the pardon board vote, 鈥淚鈥檝e had the feeling that my feet are not touching the ground because my ancestors are carrying me,鈥� he said.

In 1896, Justice Henry Billings Brown wrote in the 7-1 decision: 鈥淟egislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences.鈥�

Justice John Harlan was the only dissenting voice, writing that he believed the ruling 鈥渨ill, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott Case鈥� 鈥� an 1857 decision that said no Black person who had been enslaved or was descended from a slave could ever become a U.S. citizen.

The Plessy v. Ferguson ruling allowing racial segregation across American life stood as the law of the land until the Supreme Court unanimously overruled it in 1954, in Brown v. the Board of Education. Both cases argued that segregation laws violated the 14th聽Amendment鈥檚 right to equal protection.

The Brown decision led to widespread public school desegregation and the eventual stripping away of Jim Crow laws that discriminated against Black Americans.

Plessy was a member of the Citizens Committee, a New Orleans group trying to overcome laws that rolled back post-Civil War advances in equality.

The 30-year-old shoemaker lacked the business, political, and educational accomplishments of most of the other members, Keith Weldon Medley wrote in the book 鈥淲e As Freemen: Plessy v. Ferguson.鈥� But his light skin 鈥� court papers described him as someone whose 鈥渙ne eighth African blood鈥� was 鈥渘ot discernable鈥� 鈥� positioned him for the train car protest.

鈥淗is one attribute was being white enough to gain access to the train and black enough to be arrested for doing so,鈥� Mr. Medley wrote.

Eight months after the ruling in his case, Plessy pleaded guilty and was fined $25 at a time when 25 cents would buy a pound of round steak and 10 pounds of potatoes.聽Keith Plessy said donations collected by the committee paid the fine and other legal costs. But Plessy returned to obscurity, and never returned to shoemaking.

He worked alternately as a laborer, warehouse worker, and clerk before becoming a collector for the Black-owned People鈥檚 Life Insurance Company, Mr. Medley wrote. He died in 1925 with the conviction on his record.

Relatives of Plessy and John Howard Ferguson, the judge who oversaw his case in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court, became friends decades later and formed a nonprofit that advocates for civil rights education.

The purpose of the pardon 鈥渋s not to erase what happened 125 years ago but to acknowledge the wrong that was done,鈥� said Phoebe Ferguson, the great-great-granddaughter of the judge.

Other recent efforts have acknowledged Plessy鈥檚 role in history, including a 2018 vote by the New Orleans City Council to rename a section of the street where he tried to board the train in his honor.

The governor鈥檚 office described this as the first pardon under Louisiana鈥檚 2006 Avery Alexander Act, which allows pardons for people convicted under laws that were intended to discriminate.

Former state Sen. Edwin Murray said he originally wrote the act to automatically pardon anyone convicted of breaking a law written to encode discrimination. He said he made it optional after people arrested for civil rights protests told him they considered the arrests a badge of honor.

This story was reported by The Associated Press.