by John Marshall Harlan

“ They averred that the action of the board of education was a denial of the equal protection of the laws secured by the Constitution of the United States, and that it was inequitable, illegal, and unconstitutional for the board to levy upon or for the tax collector to collect from them any tax for the educational purposes of the county from the benefits of which the petitioners in the persons of their children of school age were excluded and debarred. ”

“ The only complaint is that these plaintiffs, being taxpayers, are debarred the privilege of sending their children to a high school which is not a free school, but one where tuition is charged, and that a portion of the school fund, raised by taxation, is appropriated to sustain white high schools to which negroes are not admitted. ”

“ The plaintiffs in error complain that the board of education used the funds in its hands to assist in maintaining a high school for white children without providing a similar school for colored children. ”

“ Whether or not the petitioners at the time of said suspension had children attending the Ware High School this defendant is not advised, but denies that they are debarred from a high-school education in this community, since for the same charges as were made by this board for pupilage in the Ware High School they can find this education in three other colored high schools open to the public in the city of Augusta. ”

“ That the plaintiffs were residents, property owners, and taxpayers of Richmond county, the defendant board being a corporation created under an act of the general assembly of Georgia of August 23d, 1872, regulating public instruction in that county empowering the board to annually levy such tax as it deemed necessary for public school purposes ”

“ That, in 1880, there being no high school in the county for the colored race, the funds of the board justifying it, and other schools of lower grade having been established by the local trustees in Augusta sufficient to accommodate the colored children, the board deemed it wise and proper to establish the Ware High School, charging for each pupil taught therein $10 per annum ”

“ But it averred that the impression sought to be conveyed that there was sectarian, denominational teaching in those schools was untrue; that the schools referred to were open to the public generally, and any child of sufficient scholarship and moral character could enter them, whatever his or her religious belief. ”