Plessy v. Ferguson, widely known for giving the United States the “separate but equal” doctrine, was one of the most influential and polarizing cases the Supreme Court has ever decided. The majority opinion was written by Justice Henry Billings Brown of Massachusetts and provided a legal basis to uphold segregation and the Jim Crow system of laws that were the hallmark of the American South in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Plessy v. Ferguson held that states were allowed to segregate their Black and white citizens in public spaces and intrastate railroads as long as the separate accommodations were of equal quality. Accommodations for African Americans, however, were invariably of much lower quality than those for whites.