Footnote 582: Acts of Va., 1901, extra sess., pp. 212–13; 1901–02, pp. 639–40. Footnote 583: Acts of Tenn., 1903, p. 75. Footnote 584: Laws of S. C., 1905, p. 954. Footnote 585: Raleigh, N. C., _News and Observer_, Nov. 23, 1906. Footnote 586: Walden v. Vicksburg Ry. and Light Co., 1906, 40 S. 751. Footnote 587: State v. Patterson, 1905, 39 S. 398, at p. 400. Footnote 588: Pub. Laws of N. C., 1909, p. 1256. CHAPTER X NEGRO IN COURT ROOM The Negro goes into a court room in one or more of six capacities, namely: as spectator, witness, juror, party to a suit, attorney, or judge. It is in each of these capacities that the Negro in the court room is to be considered, but some of them permit of only brief mention. How the Negro actually fares in the court room—whether he gets justice as often as the white person does, whether his testimony has as much weight with the jury and court as that of the white witness, whether the Negro attorney or judge is accorded as much courtesy as the white man in a similar position—would make an interesting and profitable study, but such a study is largely outside the field of this investigation. It should be kept in mind now, as in the previous chapters, that only those distinctions are considered which have come within the pale of the law since 1865, either in the form of statutory enactment or judicial decision. Where mention is made of some of the actual extralegal race distinctions in the court room, it is only for illustration. AS SPECTATOR The court room, while the court is in session, is open to all citizens, regardless of race or color. No instance has been found either in the statutes or judicial reports of one’s admission to or exclusion from the court room being dependent upon his race or color. It is to be noticed, however, in Southern court rooms that the spectators are separated by race, Negroes usually occupying seats on one side of the room and white people on the other. This must be entirely a matter of custom, as no case has been found of such separation being required by law or ordinance. While this point has not been deemed important enough for a special investigation, it is presumed that one will find the races separated in the court room in those States or communities where they are separated in other places—as in public conveyances, schools, and churches. A Negro in the South, as elsewhere, has, legally and actually, as good an opportunity to observe court proceedings as a white person, though custom may require him to sit in a different part of the court room from that occupied by the latter. AS JUDGE