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
In 1896 the members of the Indiana University football team went to the
Nutt House in Crawfordsville, Indiana, for accommodation. One of the
members of the team was a Negro. The clerk refused to take the Negro in
with the rest of the guests, but offered to let him eat at the
“ordinary.” The Negro, being a minor, brought suit through his next
friend, and the Indiana[264] court held that the Civil Rights Bill of
the State could not be satisfied by separate accommodations.
There is no case of race discrimination in the hotels of Massachusetts
that has reached the higher courts, but in April, 1896, the following
resolution[265] was passed by the General Court of the State:
“_Whereas_, On the twenty-ninth day of January, eighteen ninety-six, the
Reverend Benjamin W. Arnett, D.D., of Wilberforce, Ohio, senior bishop
of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, president of the board of
trustees of Wilberforce University, and member of many learned
societies, was refused entertainment at certain reputable hotels in the
city of Boston, because he was a colored man, in spite of the statute
laws against discrimination on account of color; therefore,
“_Resolved_, That the senate and house of representatives of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in general court assembled, successors of
those bodies which repeatedly elected Charles Sumner to the Senate of
the United States, and for four years received messages from John A.
Andrew, hereby express their severest reprobation of such discrimination
and their firm conviction of the truth of the clause of the Declaration
of Independence wherein all men are declared to be created equal; and it
is further
“_Resolved_, That still more to be reprobated is the sentiment of any
part of the public against any class of our fellow citizens whereby such
discrimination is rendered possible, and that a vigorous campaign for
statute rights by the persons most aggrieved will meet the hearty
approval and coöperation of the two branches of the General Court.” This
is very significant as showing the actual attitude of the hotels of
Boston toward receiving Negroes. Whether the “vigorous campaign” was
conducted one cannot tell; certainly no case appears to have reached the
courts. And there is in Boston at present a Negro hotel.
The manager of the Lucerne Hotel in New York City in 1905, refused to
lease a suite to a woman because she was a Jewess. It was a family
hotel, containing small suites like those found in an ordinary apartment
house, rented upon annual leases, transients not being solicited. The
New York court[266] held that it was not a hotel in the sense that the
manager must receive all applicants without regard to race or color. Of
course, this case did not concern the Negro, but the same principle is
involved.
RESTAURANTS
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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