This was the situation as it was brought out in the case of _Cumming_ v. _The Board of Education of Richmond County_.[71] It appeared that a tax for schools had been levied in this district. The Negroes objected to paying that portion of the tax which provided for the maintenance of a high school, the benefits of which they were denied, when there was no high school provided for them. The board of education of Richmond County had maintained a high school for Negroes but abolished it. The petitioner prayed, therefore, that an injunction be granted against the collection of such portion of the school tax as was used for the maintenance of said high school. The defendant set up the plea that it had not established a white high school, but had merely appropriated some money to assist a denominational high school for white children, saying "that it had to choose between maintaining the lower schools for a large number of Negroes and providing a high school for about sixty." The board of education, declared, moreover, that the establishment of a Negro high school was merely postponed. The opinion of the court was that a decision by a State court, denying an injunction against the maintenance by a board of education of a high school for white children, while failing to maintain one for Negro children also, for the reason that the funds were not sufficient to maintain it in addition to needed primary schools for Negro children, does not constitute a denial to persons of color of the equal protection of the law or equal privileges of citizens of the United States. The court held that under the circumstances disclosed it could not say that this action of the State court was, within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, a denial by the State to the plaintiffs and to those associated with them of the equal protection of the laws, or of any privileges belonging to them as citizens of the United States. While the court admitted that the benefits and burdens of public taxation must be shared by citizens without discrimination against any class on account of their race, it held that the education of people in schools maintained by State taxation is a matter belonging to the respective States, and any interference on the part of Federal authority with the management of such schools cannot be justified except in case of a clear unmistakable disregard of rights secured by the supreme law of the land.