Jim Crow laws

“ The object of the movement is to protest against disfranchisement and Jim Crow laws and to demand equal rights of education, equal civil rights, equal economic opportunities, and justice in the courts. Taking the ballot from the Negro they declare to be only a step to economic slavery; that it leaves the Negro defenceless before his competitor—that the disfranchisement laws in the South are being followed by all manner of other discriminations which interfere with the progress of the Negro. ”

“ It is true that because of the institution of slavery, the Jim Crow laws, and the lingering bigotries and separatist views following the Civil War, African-Americans were obstructed from obtaining necessary information on their claims and in some instances access to the legal system. Nevertheless, Plaintiffs' ancestors knew of their injury at the time that it occurred. They knew, or should have known, that they were wrongfully being forced to work without compensation, and that somebody was making a profit from their labor. ”

“ In large areas of the country where lynchings and beatings were commonplace, white supremacy had existed as a literal fact of life and death. [1-15] More insidious than the Jim Crow laws were the economic deprivation and dearth of educational opportunity associated with racial discrimination. Traditionally the last hired, first fired, Negroes suffered all the handicaps that came from unemployment and poor jobs, a condition further aggravated by the Great Depression. ”

“ Scarcely a day passes but something is said or done with this end in view, to emphasize, lest they forget, the conviction for both white man and Negro that the latter is and must remain an inferior. Let me instance a few such evidences.
Consider, first, the "Jim Crow" legislation in the manner of its enforcement. Such legislation is supposed to have for its object the separation of the races in trains, street-cars, etc., to save the white people from occasional contact with drunken, rowdy, ill-smelling Negroes, and to prevent personal encounters between the whites and blacks. ”

“ The Jim Crow car, and all such discriminations in the system of public conveyance, are, I believe, necessities, but deplorable necessities none the less. The constant struggle to exclude the negro from political power is at best a negative and unproductive expenditure of energy, at worst a source of political dishonesty and corruption. The wresting of the law, whether criminal or civil, into an instrument for keeping the negro in a state of abject serfdom, is a scandal and a disgrace to any civilized community. ”

“ In pursuance of this wise and humane policy the Republicans in Congress enacted, despite Democratic opposition, a bill establishing a Freedmen's Bureau as a part of the national administration, thus giving national guardianship to the negroes as temporary wards of the nation. Following this came a Civil Rights law which recognized negroes as citizens of the United States—they had long been citizens of many of the states—safeguarded them in their rights of person and of property and forbade discrimination against them by any state laws. ”

“ In the economic field, there is a pronounced tendency to restrict Negro workers to the humblest occupations, and in the agricultural areas the system of peonage or debt-slavery is widely employed for the purpose of attaching Negro families to the soil. Residence-districts are regularly segregated, Jim Crow regulations are everywhere in force, and inter-racial marriages are prohibited by law in all the States of the South. The administration of justice is in the hands of white judges and white juries, and the Negro’s chances in such company are notoriously small. ”

“ Among the first acts of legislation adopted by several of the states in the legislative bodies which claimed to be in their normal relations with the Federal Government, were laws which imposed upon the colored race onerous disabilities and burdens, and curtailed their rights in the pursuit of life, liberty, and property to such an extent that their freedom was of little value, while they had lost their protection which they had received from their former owners from motives both of interest and humanity. ”

“ The Court ruled that the Negroes who were excluded from public places suffered only an invasion of their social rights at the hands of private individuals, and Congress had no power to remedy that. Id. at 24-25.
When a man has emerged from slavery, and, by the aid of beneficent legislation, has shaken off the inseparable concomitants of that [p392] state, the Court concluded,
there must be some stage in the progress of his elevation when he takes the rank of a mere citizen, and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws. ”

“ No law has been passed under the commonwealth to ameliorate the black code of the colony of Virginia; on the contrary, new laws have been passed, adding to the oppression of the unfortunate negroes, and which have not only abridged the rights of humanity, but of the citizen. Such is the character of the law which restricts and to a great degree prohibits the master from manumitting his slave. ”

“ In the South the first answer nearly always referred to the Jim Crow cars or the Jim Crow railroad stations; after that, the complaint was of political disfranchisement, the difficulty of getting justice in the courts, the lack of good school facilities, and in some localities, of the danger of actual physical violence.
But in the North the first answer invariably referred to working conditions.
“The Negro isn’t given a fair opportunity to get employment. He is discriminated against because he is coloured.” ”

“ And what I say here will hold with still more force against the judge's doctrine of 'unfriendly legislation.' How could you, having sworn to support the Constitution, and believing it guaranteed the right to hold slaves in the Territories, assist in legislation intended to defeat that right?" "Is not Congress itself under obligation to give legislative support to any right that is established under the United States Constitution?" Upon what other principle do "many of us, who are opposed to slavery upon principle, give our acquiescence to a Fugitive Slave Law?" ”

“ The Civil Rights Bill passed by Congress is almost a dead letter, and many of the rebel judges declare it unconstitutional. The States having relapsed into the hands of the late slave-holders, and they becoming the executioners of the law, the blacks cannot look for justice at their hands. The negro must be placed in a position to protect himself. How shall that be done? We answer, the only thing to save him is the ballot. Liberty without equality is no boon. Talk not of civil without political emancipation! ”

“ Now, as to the laws, they amount to nothing, inasmuch as slave evidence is not admissible, and the possibility of any oppression, even to death itself, must frequently be, without any fear of punishment, in the hands of the owner. If law, then, affords the negro no efficient protection from human passions, where are we to look for it in human nature, except it be in the influences of Christianity, self-interest, or public opinion? ”

“ Not only do the segregationists deny the validity of many of the basic concepts of democracy but they also dispute the authority of the federal government to assure equal treatment under the laws of the United States to all Americans. They uphold what they consider to be the constitutional rights of the states above human rights as applied to the Negro. Democracy is denied to Negroes in the name of democratic government. ”

“ It provided that no amendment to the Constitution, or any other proposition affecting slavery in any way, could ever be legally presented upon the floor of Congress unless its mover had secured the previous consent of every Senator and Representative from the slave-holding States. It put teeth into the Fugitive Slave Law and absolutely gave the Negro over into the keeping of his oppressors.
Most Negro Americans (and white ones, too) think it fashionable to maintain the most fervid faith and deepest ignorance about points in their national history of which they should be informed. ”

“ On every foot of soil, over which Stars and Stripes wave, the Negro is considered common property, on which any white man may lay his hand with perfect impunity. The entire white population of the United States, North and South, are bound by their oath to the constitution, and their adhesion to the Fugitive Slaver Law, to hunt down the runaway slave and return him to his claimant, and to suppress any effort that may be made by the slaves to gain their freedom by physical force. ”

“ In fact, the statement, made in the course of a debate on a bill (S. 60) to enlarge the powers of the Freedmen's Bureau, related solely to Black Laws that had been enacted in some of the Southern States. Trumbull attacked the 'slave codes' which 'prevented the colored man going from home,' and he urged that Congress nullify all laws which would not permit the colored man 'to go where he pleases.' Cong. ”

“ If we ratify the constitution, shall we do any thing by our act to hold the blacks in slavery; or shall we become the partakers of other men's sins? I think, neither of them. Each state is sovereign and independent, to a certain degree; and they have a right, and will regulate their own internal affairs as to themselves appears proper; and shall we refuse to eat or drink, or to be united with those who do not think or act just as we do? Surely not. We are not, in this case, partakers of other men's sins; for in nothing do we voluntarily encourage the slavery of our fellow men. ”

“ It takes no rights from any white man. It simply places others on the same platform upon which he stands; and if he would invoke the power of local prejudice to override the laws of the country, this is no Government unless the military may be called in to enforce the order of the civil courts and obedience to the laws of the country."
Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, said, in answer to some objections to the bill urged by Mr. Guthrie: "The Senator tells us that the emancipated men ought to have their civil rights, that the black codes fell with slavery ”

“ Now, to pass such a bill is a thing which Congress cannot do. But when Congress undertook to legalize slavery in this District, it undertook to do all this, and worse than all this. It attainted, not individuals merely, but a whole race. A slave is an outlaw; that is, he cannot make a contract; he cannot prosecute and defend in court; property cannot be acquired by him, or devised to him, or transmitted through him. A white man may give his testimony against him, but he cannot give his testimony against a white man. He is despoiled of his liberam legem,—his birthright. ”

“ A law under which two or more free white private citizens could be punished for conspiring or going in disguise for the purpose of depriving another free white citizen of a right accorded by the law of the state to all classes of persons,-as, for instance, the right to make a contract, bring a suit, or give evidence,-clearly cannot be authorized by the amendment which simply prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude.
Those provisions of the law, which are broader than is warranted by the article of the constitution by which they are supposed to be authorized, cannot be sustained. ”

“ Justice O'CONNOR, joined by THE CHIEF JUSTICE, Justice WHITE, and Justice KENNEDY, concluded in Part II that the text and legislative history of both the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Civil Rights Act of 1871, the precursors of §§ 1981 and 1983 respectively, demonstrate that § 1981 does not provide an independent federal damages remedy for racial discrimination by local governmental entities; rather, Congress intended that the explicit remedial provisions of § 1983 control in the context of § 1981 damages actions against state actors. ”

“ Thus we find that he most strenuously opposed the exclusion of slavery from Missouri, and any interference with it; we find him asserting that Congress had no right whatever to prescribe conditions to newly organized states in any way restricting their “sovereign rights;” we find him sneering at the advocates of slavery-restriction as afflicted with “negrophobia;” we find him pathetically, in the name of humanity, excusing the extension of slavery as apt to improve the condition of the negro, and advancing the argument that the evils of slavery might be cured by spreading it ”

“ As was pointed out in the discussion of the Senate debates, supra at 462, the references to white men's refusals to pay freedmen and their agreements not to hire freedmen without their 'masters" consent are by no means contrary to a 'state action' view of the civil rights bill, since the bill expressly forbade action pursuant to 'custom' and both of these practices reflected 'customs' from the time of slavery. The Court cites two different House references to assaults on Negroes by whites. ”

“ The Duty of The Socialist Party.
I think that we might embrace the opportunity of taking the matter up at the coming national convention. The time is ripe for taking a stand against the extensive disfranchisement of the Negro in violation of the plain provisions of the national constitution. In view of the fact that the last three amendments to the constitution contain the clause, “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation,” the party will not be guilty of proposing anything worse than asking the government to enforce its own “law and order.” ”