Dr Michael Ross

speaker

223 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Aug 2026 last heard 6 Aug

Dr Michael Ross’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.

Appearances

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

American History Hit · Plessy v. Ferguson: The Supreme Court Case That Enshrined Jim Crow · 6 Aug 2026 podcast

And they are folks who had known the moment of possibility in New Orleans.

There's a moment during Reconstruction where around 1870, you have African-Americans being elected to political office.

You have African-Americans serving on juries as policemen, black detectives solving high-profile crimes.

And it just looks like things are going to change.

As Arnold Bertineau, one of these civil rights activists, would famously say, "...we opened our hearts to hope.

It seemed to us that we were given new life, and we began to make some beautiful dreams."

And then Reconstruction, for myriad reasons, collapses.

And as Reconstruction fades, the old Confederates, the old white South becomes emboldened and decides that they are going to, through law, attempt to reestablish a caste system in the South.

And the Committee of Citizens were people who said, we are not going to stand for this.

This test case might not turn out the way we want it to, but we're not going to just lay down and say, let's make the best of this new reactionary world.

Yes, it is.

Everyone knows what's going to happen.

The railroad knows, the conductor knows, the detective, the white detective who's sitting in the first class car knows.

And they all know that what's going to happen is the train's going to go a short distance.

The conductor is going to patrol the cars as they were required to do by law.

and ask people who they suspected of being black if they were and were sitting inappropriately in the white car.

Now, Homer Plessy could have very easily passed as white, but that's not his goal.

And the conductor asks him, are you a white man?

And he says, no, I'm colored.

And that sets off the events.

Showing 41–60 of 223 · page 3 of 12