Charles Erasmus Fenner

Fenner, a judge in New Orleans, was involved in writing the 1892 Louisiana judgment that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Plessy v. Ferguson decision in 1896. The Plessy decision established the federal “separate but equal” standard that was the legal basis for racial segregation in public facilities. Fenner had served as a Confederate captain during the Civil War. Fenner eulogized Robert E. Lee upon his death, and Confederate president Jefferson Davis died at Fenner’s New Orleans home in 1889.17 Sewanee honored Fenner with a Doctorate of Law in 1888 — four years before his contribution to the legal doctrine of “separate but equal.” When Fenner died, Southern newspapers eulogized him as a champion of Old South ideals and a heroic Confederate veteran:

"The death of Charles Erasmus Fenner, the distinguished soldier and jurist, serves to emphasize the fact that the Confederate veteran is a vanishing type...Men of less heroic stature would have evaded the crisis, or would have thrown in their lot with the side that held out the fairer promise of success...But the spirit of the Confederacy was unconquerable...In the legislature, on the bench and in countless private ways, Charles Erasmus Fenner did his full share of this splendid work. Unlike so many of those who fought and toiled with him, he was privileged to see the New South strong, proud and prosperous."

-- Obituary for C.E. Fenner, The Caucasian (Shreveport, LA) October 29, 1911

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