Homer Plessy was born on March 17th 1862. He was considered an octoron because he was 7/8 white and 1/8 black. His parents were classified as free people of color or Creoles of color, with African and French forebears. Plessy grew up speaking French. Adolphe Plessy died when Homer was seven years old. In 1871, his mother Rosa Debergue Plessy, a seamstress, married Victor M. Dupart, a clerk for the U.S. Post Office who supplemented his income by working as a shoemaker. Plessy too became a shoemaker. During the 1880s, he worked at Patricio Brito’s shoe-making business on Dumaine Street near North Rampart. New Orleans city directories from 1886-1924 list his occupations as shoemaker, laborer, clerk, and insurance agent. In 1890 Plessy was recruited by The Comité des Citoyens, a comitee of African Americans, Whites and Creoles. The committee opposed many Jim Crow laws. But none did they dislike more than The Separate car act. The comitee recruited plessy to violate the separate car act. Because of Plessy's white complexion he was able to buy a first class ticket. The committee also hired a private detective to arrest Plessy to make sure he was arrested. Plessy sat in the "Whites only" section of the plane and was arrested and jailed