What year did the Supreme Court decide Plessey vs Ferguson, affirming the 'separate but equal' doctrine?

The Supreme Court decided Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, which is significant for establishing the 'separate but equal' doctrine. This ruling upheld state laws that sanctioned racial segregation, claiming that as long as the separate facilities for the whites and blacks were equal, segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. The decision had a profound impact on the legal landscape of segregation in the United States, entrenching systemic racism until it was eventually overturned by Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. The year 1896 is crucial because it marks the moment when the Supreme Court legally justified racial segregation, shaping civil rights issues for decades to come.