The Cabildo Museum

The Cabildo Museum's guide climbs to the upstairs chamber in New Orleans where, in January 1893, Louisiana's Supreme Court ruled on Homer Plessy, a shoemaker who had boarded a whites-only train car on purpose to force the question of what a color line meant. You'll hear how his case was engineered by local activists and how it climbed the same stairs behind you before reaching the US Supreme Court a few years later. The guide also traces this building's older role as a Spanish colonial council chamber and the 1803 ceremony that transferred the territory to the United States. Look up at the roof and cupola above you, rebuilt after a welder's torch started a fire here in 1988.