Race Distinctions in American LawStephenson, Gilbert Thomas
History
Race Distinctions in American Law
Stephenson, Gilbert Thomas
African Americans -- Politics and government; Law -- United States -- History; United States -- Race relations
_North Carolina._—County No. 1, 6,800 white people, 8,000 Negroes: “...
of late years very few Negroes serve on the juries in this county for
the reasons that they are an illiterate race and moral character not
what it should be. Further, he is easily influenced, deciding with a
juror whom he may like instead of weighing the evidence and deciding
accordingly. The number of Negro jurors has decreased for the past few
years on account of the Negro of to-day [being] morally not as good as
the Negro of several years ago.”
County No. 2, 11,000 white people, 19,000 Negroes: “I will say that
Negroes do not serve on the jury in this county and have not since we,
the white people, got the government in our hands. When the Republican
party was in power Negroes were drawn, both regular and talis jurors,
and not one out of one hundred was a competent juror, but, strange to
say, when a Negro was on trial, he would always prefer the white men to
try his case.”
County No. 3, 5,800 white people, 8,300 Negroes: “Negroes occasionally
serve on juries in ... county, but not to as great extent as they did
before the passage of the Amendment [the suffrage amendment in 1900].
The County Commissioners have been more particular about the names that
are left in the box from which jurors are drawn. Only the best, most
reliable and most intelligent Negroes are left in the box. Sometimes it
happens that a few are called as talismen, but not then until the
sheriff has exhausted his best efforts to get white men. Those called
are very apt to be good, reliable men, and with a majority of white men
in the jury-box are not disposed or able to do wrong. My experience as
clerk for 20 years is that they make good jurors, and are apt to be
disposed, in criminal actions, to execute the law even against their own
race. Judge ... says that white men on the jury are everywhere disposed
to lean toward a Negro litigant, especially if the Negro is of the
old-class, before-the-war Negro gentleman and the white man is of these
later days ‘common trash.’ I am told by the judges that in some counties
the sheriffs would not dare to call a Negro as a talisman even, but, as
I have said, we have them not very frequently and without complaint. I
notice that the opposing lawyers are slow in challenging them when so
called....”
County No. 4, 12,600 white people, 13,100 Negroes: “... Negroes do not
serve on juries in our County, nor are they allowed to vote or take any
part in county or municipal affairs....”
County No. 5, 5,700 white people, 6,700 Negroes: “A colored man has
never served on the jury in this county, neither has a colored man ever
voted in this county.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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