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
Arkansas,[239] in 1873, required the same accommodations to be furnished
to all by common carriers, keepers of public houses of entertainment,
inns, hotels, restaurants, saloons, groceries, dramshops, or other
places where liquor was sold, public schools, and benevolent
institutions supported in whole or partly by general taxation.
The law of Tennessee[240] of 1875 is in a very different tone, it being
very much like, as has been said before, that of Delaware. That statute
reads: “The rule of the common law giving a right of action to any
person excluded from any hotel, or public means of transportation, or
place of amusement, is hereby abrogated; and hereafter no keeper of any
hotel, or public house, or carrier of passengers for hire, or
conductors, drivers, or employees of such carrier or keeper, shall be
bound, or under any obligation to entertain, carry, or admit any person,
whom he shall for any reason whatever, choose not to entertain, carry,
or admit, to his house, hotel, carriage, or means of transportation or
place of amusement; nor shall any right exist in favor of any such
person so refused admission, but the right of such keepers of hotels and
public houses, carriers of passengers, and keepers of places of
amusement and their employees to control the access and admission or
exclusion of persons to or from their public houses, means of
transportation, and places of amusement, shall be as perfect and
complete as that of any person over his private house, carriage, or
private theatre, or place of amusement for his family.” This Tennessee
law is even more sweeping than that of Delaware. In the latter, common
carriers may provide separate accommodations for persons that would be
disagreeable to the major portion of the traveling public; in the
former, the common carrier might exclude such persons altogether.
According to the Tennessee statute, every railroad company in the State
had a right to refuse absolutely to carry Negroes on its cars. Of
course, this has been changed by its “Jim Crow” laws. The case of State
v. Lasater,[241] dealing with the second section of the Tennessee
statute, has the following to say about the whole enactment: “This is an
extraordinary statute. It is generally understood to have been passed to
avoid the supposed effects of an act of Congress on the same subject,
known as the Civil Rights Bill.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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