Gilbert Thomas Stephenson

“ It is plain that, if a State or the United States makes a law that in any way denies or abridges the right of a citizen to vote on account of his race, such an enactment is in violation of the Amendment. The only State or Federal statute or State constitutional provision involving a race distinction that would be valid under the Fifteenth Amendment would be one that did not amount to a denial or abridgment of the right to vote. For instance, a State might require white and Negro electors to cast their ballots in different boxes, or in different parts of the booth, or even in different booths ”

“ Whether or not the final adjustment is a segregation of the Negro race, one can hardly expect it to come in one, two, or even six decades. A century hence the white people will probably be living side by side with Negroes as they do now. The duty of the American people is to act properly toward all races in their own lifetime: the far future will take care of itself. The difficult thing to ascertain is the proper mode of acting to-day. The solution of the race problem, when it does come, will doubtless be a composite result. ”

“ Immediately after the Negro became a free man in 1865, the Federal Government undertook, by a series of constitutional amendments and statutory enactments, to secure to him all the rights and privileges of an American citizen. My effort has been to ascertain how far this attempt has been successful. The inquiry has been: After forty-five years of freedom from physical bondage, how much does the Negro lack of being, in truth, a full-fledged American citizen? What limitations upon him are allowed or imposed by law because he is a Negro? ”

“ To recognize inequality as to the civil or political rights belonging to any citizen or class of citizens, or to attempt to fix the social status of any citizen either by legislation or judicial decision, is repugnant to every principle underlying our republican form of government. ”

“ If separate schools were provided, Negro children would be free to pursue, unhampered by requirements prescribed for the more developed race and unembittered by continuous manifestations of race prejudice, a curriculum especially adapted to their own needs. Wherever separate railroad and street car accommodations were provided, a Negro might enter the car or compartment reserved for his race and go his way in peace, unmolested by the thoughtless or vicious of the other race. The result, therefore, of the honest enforcement of race distinctions would be to the advantage of the weaker race. ”

“ When the Negro was made a citizen, it became necessary at once to settle his marital relations. If the usual slave marriages were not recognized as legal, then the offspring of such unions were bastards with the usual disqualifications of that class, among which is their partial incapacity to inherit property. In order to secure to Negroes the rights of heirs, it was necessary to legalize slave marriages, at least to the extent of giving to the children of such marriages the right of inheritance. ”

“ He said that the Kentucky statute was void as an arbitrary invasion of the rights of liberty and property granted by the Fourteenth Amendment against unauthorized State action. “Have we,” he asked, “become so inoculated with prejudice of race that an American government, professedly based on the principles of freedom, and charged with the protection of all citizens alike, can make distinction between such citizens in the matter of their voluntary meeting for innocent purposes simply because of their respective races? ”

“ In some States, an action by the State is a bar to an action by the party and vice versa. One who aids or abets in a discrimination against a person on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude is punished to the same extent as the one actually committing the act. ”

“ But it is only fair to remember, in reading them, that the Southern legislatures were, in many instances, only following precedents that had been set by the free States in dealing with free Negroes, and that the States, either Northern or Southern, had not yet looked upon the Negro as a citizen with the rights guaranteed him by the amended Federal Constitution. Industrial conditions in the South were so demoralized by the War and Emancipation that the legislatures considered it imperative upon them to take immediate and positive steps to establish an industrial relation between the races. ”

“ The fact that a different punishment is affixed to the offence of adultery when committed between a Negro and a white person, and when committed between two white persons or two Negroes, does not constitute a discrimination against or in favor of either race. The discrimination is not directed against the person of any particular color or race, but against the offence, the nature of which is determined by the opposite colors of the cohabiting parties. ”

“ It will have been noticed that all the courts which have held it actionable per se to call a white person a Negro have been in the Southern States. It is doubtful whether the courts in other sections would take the same view, and even Kentucky, a Southern State, has refused so to do. The attitude of the court depends upon whether it is the consensus of opinion among the people of the community that it is injurious to a white man in his business and social relations to be called a Negro. ”

“ In general, where separate schools are required, it is said that they must be equal for both races; but it has been held that it is not an unjust discrimination to build more imposing school-houses for the many white children than for the few colored children; to require the children of one race to walk farther to school than the other, or to maintain high schools for one race without doing so for the other. ”

“ In some of the counties of the State, the boards of supervisors select some Negroes for jury service, but the great trouble is, there are comparatively few Negroes in any county, and none in some of the counties, who can measure up to the qualifications prescribed by law.... The criminal element in Mississippi is composed largely of the Negro race, and as a matter of fact, the persons of that race charged with crime and the lawyers who defend them, the large majority of whom are of the white race, do not want Negroes on the jury, and Negroes are almost invariably challenged. ”

“ As has already been said, public education is distinctly a State function. The Federal government, in the main, has not undertaken to have anything to do with it, but Congress, by its exclusive jurisdiction, has supreme control over the public schools of the District of Columbia, and the provisions that it has made there for the separation of the races show in an interesting way the attitude of the national government upon the subject. ”

“ In fact, there is an essential difference between race distinctions and race discriminations. North Carolina, for example, has a law that white and Negro children shall not attend the same schools, but that separate schools shall be maintained. If the terms for all the public schools 3in the State are equal in length, if the teaching force is equal in numbers and ability, if the school buildings are equal in convenience, accommodations, and appointments, a race distinction exists but not a discrimination. Identity of accommodation is not essential to avoid the charge of discrimination. ”

“ PAUPER LAWS Another perplexing problem that faced the Southern legislatures was how to meet the needs of the paupers, white and Negro. Much of the property of the white people had been swept away entirely or had greatly deteriorated in value as a result of the War. Few of the Negroes, to be sure, had property to lose, but what was worse, they had lost their right to look to the white people for sustenance. Many of them were unable to support themselves, and the white people could not help them. ”

“ If scientific investigation and experience show that in the education of the Negro child emphasis should be placed on one course of study, and in the education of the white child, on another; it is not a discrimination to emphasize industrial training in the Negro school, if that is better suited to the needs of the Negro pupil, and classics in the white school if the latter course is more profitable to the white child. There is no discrimination so long as there is equality of opportunity, and this equality may often be attained only by a difference in methods. ”

“ The qualifications for jurors are very strict in this State and comparatively few Negroes can qualify legally. In limited numbers they make very satisfactory jurors when the rights of their people are involved. As a rule, a Negro does not like to try a white man’s case; they are much more inclined to convict Negroes charged with crime than are the white jurors, and Negro defendants always challenge Negro jurors. In the ‘Black Belt’ of Mississippi, a Negro can always receive a fair trial in the courts, but this is not so certain in the white counties. ”

“ PUNISHMENT FOR ISSUING LICENSES With no less severity do the States punish those who issue licenses to persons of one race to marry those of another. Alabama declares that anyone knowingly issuing a license for the marriage of a white and colored person shall be fined not less than one hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars and may also be imprisoned in the county jail or sentenced to hard labor for the county for not more than six months. Colorado makes it a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of one hundred dollars. ”

“ It has been my custom to write and speak of the members of my race as Negroes, and when using the term ‘Negro’ as a race designation to employ the capital ‘N.’ To the majority of the people among whom we live I believe this is customary and what is termed in the rhetorics ‘good usage.’... Rightly or wrongly, all classes have called us Negroes. ”

“ Of the Southern States which have altered their suffrage laws since 1890, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Virginia have not provided any permanent property test.
The property qualifications cause the disfranchisement of more of one race than of the other only in so far as the first is more shiftless and more delinquent in the payment of taxes than the other. If the Negro is given the same opportunity as the white to acquire property, he has an equal opportunity to register under the property clause of the suffrage laws. ”

“ With such incomplete statistics, conclusions as to the actual service of the Negro as a juror can hardly be more than guesses. Some of the clerks of court say that the number of Negro jurors in their counties is increasing; others, that it is decreasing. Some say that race does not come into the consideration of fitness for jury service; others, that Negroes are not allowed on juries at all. Some say that Negro jurors have given satisfaction; others, that they have been scarcely more than figureheads following the lead of white jurors. ”