Three incidents, occurring during the past six years under widely varying circumstances and in far separated localities, have brought the question of the separation of the white and colored races in schools into much prominence.
On the 22d of March, 1904, the legislature of Kentucky[335] enacted the following statute:
“Sec. 1. That it shall be unlawful for any person, corporation or association of persons to maintain or operate any college, school or institution where persons of the white and Negro races are both received as pupils for instruction; and any person or corporation who shall operate or maintain any such college, school or institution shall be fined one thousand dollars, and any person or corporation who may be convicted of violating the provisions of this act shall be fined one hundred dollars for each day they may operate said school, college or institution after such conviction.
“Sec. 2. That any instructor who shall teach in any school, college or institution where members of said two races are received as pupils for instruction shall be guilty of operating and maintaining same and fined as provided in the first section hereof.
“Sec. 3. It shall be unlawful for any white person to attend any school or institution where Negroes are received as pupils or receive instruction, and it shall be unlawful for any Negro or colored person to attend any school or institution where white persons are received as pupils, or receive instruction. Any persons so offending shall be fined fifty dollars for each day he attends such institution or school: Provided, That the provisions of this law shall not apply to any penal institution or house of reform.
“Sec. 4. Nothing in this act shall be construed to prevent any private school, college or institution of learning from maintaining a separate and distinct branch thereof, in a different locality, not less than twenty-five miles distant, for the education exclusively of one race or color.
“Sec. 5. This act shall not take effect, or be in operation before the fifteenth day of July, Nineteen Hundred and Four.”
This law was general in its terms, requiring, under heavy penalty, the separation of the white and colored races in all schools of the State, private as well as public. But at the time of the consideration of the bill, the legislators probably knew that there was only one school in the State which admitted both white and colored students. That was Berea College, which had been established about fifty years before for the purpose of “promoting the cause of Christ” and of giving general and nonsectarian instruction to “all youth of good moral character.” It was primarily for the benefit of the mountain whites of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and the Carolinas. After the Civil War, the doors of the school had been opened to Negroes, and in 1904, Berea had a student-body of nine hundred and twenty-seven, of whom one hundred and seventy-four were Negroes.[336] The President and Trustees of the college protested against the enactment of the above law, but to no avail. When the session of 1904–5 began, the colored students were refused admission. The college at once took steps to aid these Negro youths. It bore the transportation expenses of about a hundred of them to Fisk University, Knoxville College, Hampton Institute, and other distinctly colored schools. The white students left behind gave to the colored students leaving Berea the following expression of their regard for them:
“Friends and Fellow-Students: As we meet for the first time under new conditions to enjoy the great privileges of Berea College, we think at once of you who are now deprived of these privileges. Our sense of justice shows us that others have the same rights as ourselves, and the teaching of Christ leads us to ‘remember them that are in bonds as bound with them.’
“We realize that you are excluded from the class rooms of Berea College, which we so highly prize, by no fault of your own, and that this hardship is a part of a long line of deprivations under which you live. Because you were born in a race long oppressed and largely untaught and undeveloped, heartless people feel more free to do you wrong, and thoughtless people meet your attempts at self-improvement with indifference or scorn. Even good people sometimes fear to recognize your worth, or take your part in a neighborly way because of the violences and prejudices around us.
“We are glad that we have known you, or known about you, and that we know you are rising above all discouragements, and showing a capacity and a character that give promise for your people.... And you will always have our friendship, and the friendship of the best people throughout the world. We hope never to be afraid or ashamed to show our approval of any colored person who has the character and worth of most of the colored students of Berea. We are glad that the college is providing funds to assist you in continuing your education, and we are sure the institution will find ways in which to do its full duty by the colored race.”[337]
As might have been expected, the statute separating the races in schools aroused much comment throughout the country, the northern and eastern press being, as a rule, hostile to it, the southern press coming to its defence. Haste was made to have a test case involving the constitutionality of the law heard. On June 12, 1906, the Kentucky Court of Appeals in the case of Berea College v. The Commonwealth[338] upheld its constitutionality, being of opinion that the law in question did not violate the Bill of Rights of the State Constitution, because the requirement of separation was a reasonable exercise of the police power of the State, and did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment by depriving Berea College of its property without due process of law, because the right to teach white and colored children in a private school at the same time and place was not a property right, but the court added that that part of the statute requiring a separate school for the other race, if established, to be at a distance of not less than twenty-five miles, was unreasonable. The court took the position that the white and black races are naturally antagonistic, and that the enforced separation of the children in schools is in line with the preservation of the peace.
The Supreme Court of the United States,[339] on November 9, 1908, affirmed the opinion of the State court. Mr. Justice Brewer, however, placed his decision upon the ground that the legislature has a right, by express reservation, to amend the charter so long as the amendment does not defeat or substantially impair the object of the grant under the charter. Mr. Justice Harlan, in a dissenting opinion, said the court should meet the entire question squarely and decide whether it is a crime under any conditions to educate white children and Negro children at the same institution. He said that the Kentucky statute was void as an arbitrary invasion of the rights of liberty and property granted by the Fourteenth Amendment against unauthorized State action. “Have we,” he asked, “become so inoculated with prejudice of race that an American government, professedly based on the principles of freedom, and charged with the protection of all citizens alike, can make distinction between such citizens in the matter of their voluntary meeting for innocent purposes simply because of their respective races? Further, if the lower court be right, then a State may make it a crime for white and colored persons to frequent the same market places at the same time, or appear in an assemblage of citizens convened to consider questions of a public or political nature in which all citizens, without regard to race, are equally interested. Many other illustrations might be given to show the mischievous, not to say cruel, character of the statute in question, and how inconsistent such legislation is with the great principle of the equality of citizens before the law.” Mr. Justice Harlan added that he did not wish to be understood as criticising the system of separate public schools for the races, but that his censure was directed at the penal provision of the Kentucky law involved in this case, which he considered unconstitutional, and so vitiating the whole statute.
The second incident, which opened the question of the separation of the races in schools and which led to international comment, was the exclusion of the Japanese children from the public schools of the city of San Francisco. A law was enacted by the California Legislature[340] on March 12, 1872, which provided that school trustees should have the power to establish separate schools for Indian children and for the children of Mongolian and Chinese descent, and, when separate schools were furnished, to keep Indian, Mongolian, and Chinese children from attending any other school. The law was amended[341] in 1880, 1885, 1891, 1893, 1895, and 1903, but the provision for separation of the races remained essentially unchanged. This law was not enforced until 1901, when the labor vote became predominant. Then, according to Secretary Metcalf,[342] who investigated the conditions, the labor unionists began a crusade to exclude the Japanese laborers from California, as the Chinese had already been excluded. On May 6, 1905, the Board of Education of San Francisco passed the following resolution:
“That the Board of Education is determined in its efforts to effect the establishment of separate schools for Chinese and Japanese pupils, not only for the purpose of relieving the congestion at present prevailing in our schools, but also for the higher end that our children should not be placed in any position where their youthful impressions may be affected by association with pupils of the Mongolian race.” On October 1, 1906, the Board took the next step and adopted this resolution: “That in accordance with Article X, Section 1662, of the school law of California, principals are hereby directed to send all Chinese, Japanese or Korean children to the Oriental Public School, situated on the south side of Cary street between Powell and Mason streets, on and after Monday, October 15, 1906.”
On the day the latter rule went into effect there were 28,736 school children in San Francisco, of whom ninety-three were Japanese distributed in twenty-three primary and grammar schools of the city[343] and nearly half the Japanese children were in two of the twenty-three schools. When the primary schools, except the Oriental, were closed to the Japanese children the Japanese residents became indignant. They appealed to their consul, and he, to their ambassador at Washington. The latter, in turn, called on the President, reporting the matter at the same time to the home government. Alarmists began to talk of war with Japan. President Roosevelt dispatched Secretary Metcalf to California to make investigations. To use the President’s words, “I authorized and directed Secretary Metcalf to state that if there was failure to protect persons and property, then the entire power of the Federal government within the limits of the Constitution would be used promptly and vigorously to enforce the observance of our treaty, the supreme law of the land, which treaty guaranteed to the Japanese residents everywhere in the Union full and perfect protection for their persons and property, and to this end everything in my power would be done, and all the forces of the United States, both civil and military, which I could lawfully employ, would be employed.” Mayor Schmitz and a number of prominent men of the city hurried across the continent to confer with the President. A troublesome point of constitutional law was involved. It was admitted that public education is distinctly a State function. A treaty is declared by the Federal Constitution[344] to be the “supreme law of the land.” Is a treaty the “supreme law of the land” in the sense that the President or Supreme Court can treat as invalid a State statute which contravenes it, or must the Federal government bow in submission to that State statute even though it is counter to a treaty obligation? The treaty of 1894 with Japan accorded to the Japanese residents in the United States the rights and privileges of the “most favored nation.” The State of California had declared that Mongolian children, among which were Japanese, might, at the discretion of the Board of Education, be required to go to separate schools for their race. The children of the other “most favored” nations were permitted to attend the regular public schools. Is admission to the regular public schools one of the rights and privileges guaranteed to Japanese children by the treaty, which cannot be limited by a State, or does the State of California, by its police power, have a right to separate the school children by race, regardless of national treaties? These questions, however, did not have to be answered; before the crisis came, all parties seemed to have arrived at a satisfactory compromise. It was an agreement that all Japanese children not over fourteen years of age should be readmitted to the primary schools, and those over that age should be admitted to the schools of higher grade, and the Japanese coolie labor should be excluded. Thus was obviated what at one time looked like the approach of an international controversy over the separation of the races in schools.
During the last session of the California legislature, that of 1909, several bills concerning the Japanese were introduced, one of which was as follows: “Every school, unless otherwise provided by law, must be open for the admission of all children between six and twenty-one years of age residing in the district, and the Board of School Trustees or city Board of Education have power to admit adults and children not residing in the district whenever good reasons exist therefor.
“Trustees shall have the power to remove children of filthy or vicious habits or children suffering from contagious or infectious diseases, and also to establish separate schools for Indian children and for children of Mongolian or Japanese or Chinese descent.
“When such separate schools are established, Indian, Chinese, Japanese or Mongolian children must not be admitted into any other school; provided, that in cities and towns in which the kindergarten has been adopted, or may hereafter be adopted as part of the public primary schools, children may be admitted to such kindergarten classes at the age of four years; and provided further, that in cities or school districts in which separate classes have been or may hereafter be established for the instruction of the deaf, children may be admitted to such classes at the age of three years.” Practically the only difference between this bill and the present law is the insertion of “Japanese.”[345]
President Roosevelt considered this and the other bills of such serious import that he telegraphed to the Governor of the State to use his influence to prevent enactments of this nature. After a long fight the bill was killed. The legislature made an appropriation for a census of the Japanese in California in order to see just how serious the problem was.[346]
The people along the Canadian Pacific coast are facing a question similar to that in California. A member of the provincial Parliament from Manaimo, British Columbia, has recently given notice that he will introduce a measure providing for the exclusion of Oriental children from public schools, declaring that his purpose is to compel the government to maintain separate schools.[347]
The third incident referred to, though not a matter of legislation, did much to focus the attention of the country at large upon the question of the separation of the races in schools. The Twentieth Century Club of Boston met at luncheon on the 14th of February, 1907, to consider the situation of Berea College. Dr. Charles W. Eliot, then President of Harvard University, was one of the speakers. In the course of his remarks, he said: “If the numbers of whites and blacks were more nearly equal [in Boston] we might feel like segregating the one from the other in our own schools. It may be that as large and generous a work can be done for the Negro in this way as in mixed schools. So the separation of the races in the Berea schools is not really an abandonment of the principle, although it may be a departure from the original purpose.
“Perhaps if there were as many Negroes here as there we might think it better for them to be in separate schools. At present Harvard has about five thousand white students and about thirty of the colored race. The latter are hidden in the great mass and are not noticeable. If they were equal in numbers or in a majority, we might deem a separation necessary.”[348]
These conservative and guarded words of the head of the University which has, above all other American institutions of learning, preserved and encouraged the “open-door policy” toward students of all races, struck consternation to the radicals of both the white and colored races in the North and East, and gladdened the hearts of many of the South and West who are facing their own race problems. One side felt that it had lost an illustrious standard-bearer; the other, that it had won a strong ally.
These three incidents show that the separation of the races in schools is a live question, worthy of an investigation. It is probable that there are many private and public schools outside of the South which do not, in fact, admit colored students. Probably there are schools which would close their doors to white applicants. It may be that there are actual discriminations against one or the other race in those schools which claim to make no distinction on account of race or color. But many such matters as these have not come under the eye of the law, and so have no place here.
Although one need not consider in detail the laws separating the races in schools before the Civil War, because the public school system then was poorly developed, as a rule, and the Negro had not attained the rights of a citizen in many States, still it is well to look into some of the antebellum statutes and decisions to find precedents for later statutes and rulings of the courts upon this subject.
In Ohio, prior to 1848, no provision was made for the public education of colored children, and the property of colored persons was not taxed for school purposes. In fact, a law[349] of February 10, 1829, expressly excluded black and mulattoes from the public schools. In 1834, the child of a man three-quarters white and of a white woman was denied admission to a public school. In a case[350] arising out of it, the court held that a child with more than one-half white blood is entitled to the privilege of the whites, saying: “We think the term white as used in the law describes blood and not complexion.... The plaintiff’s children, therefore, are white within the meaning of the law, though the defendants have had the shabby meanness to ask from him his contribution of tax, and exclude his children from the benefit of the school he helped to support.”
In 1848, a law[351] of the same State provided for the levy of a tax upon the property of colored persons for the support of colored schools, if the objection was made to the admission of colored children into white schools. It prohibited the application of any part of the tax paid by white persons to the support of colored schools unless the whites assented thereto. A law having so many options was objectionable and was repealed within a year. The next year, 1849, a statute[352] was enacted with regard to the education of colored children, but this appropriated to the colored schools only the funds arising from taxes paid by colored persons. The year before the white patron of a school had brought an action against the directors because they erroneously admitted colored children to the school, thus contriving, he said, “to deprive him of the benefit” of sending his children to the school. The court[353] ruled that the directors were not liable because they did not act with corrupt motives, but had simply misjudged the law.
The law of 1849 gave rise to a difficulty. The Constitution of Ohio, by restricting the electorate to white persons, had provided that those entrusted with any power connected with the government of the State should be white persons. Are school directors entrusted with any governmental power? The court[354] held that they are not, in the sense of the Constitution, and that colored persons might be directors of colored schools. A statute[355] of 1853 repealed that of 1849 and provided for a division of the public school funds in proportion to the number of children of school age, regardless of color. But separate schools were still maintained. Under this law, it was held[356] that the children of three-eighths African and five-eighths white blood, who were distinctly colored and generally treated and regarded as colored children by the community wherein they resided, should not be, as of right, entitled to admission into white schools.[357] In 1841, it had been held that a youth of Negro, Indian, and white blood, but of more than half white blood, was entitled to the benefit of the school fund.
In Indiana,[358] in 1850, the public school law provided for a tax levy for the support of the schools, but omitted “all Negroes and mulattoes” from the tax list. Some colored children applied for admission, not as beneficiaries of the public school fund, but offering to pay their own tuition. The court[359] of that State held that they could not be received if the resident parents of white children attending or desiring to attend the school objected, saying: “This [the exclusion of the colored children] has not been done because they do not need education, nor because their wealth was such as to render aid undesirable, but because black children were deemed unfit associates of white, as school companions. Now, surely, this reason operates with equal force against such children attending the schools at their own, as at the public expense.”
In the case of Roberts v. The City of Boston,[360] which was argued before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in 1849, in which Charles Sumner was counsel for the plaintiff, the court gives the following interesting information: “The colored population of Boston constitute less than one sixty-second part of the entire population of the city. For half a century, separate schools have been kept in Boston for colored children, and the primary school for colored children in Belknap street was established in 1820, and has been kept there ever since. The teachers of this school have the same compensation and qualifications as in other like schools in the city. Schools for colored children were originally established at the request of colored citizens, whose children could not attend the public schools, on account of the prejudice then existing against them....
“In 1846, George Putnam and other colored citizens of Boston petitioned the primary school committee that exclusive schools for colored children might be abolished, and the committee, on the 22d of June, 1846, adopted the report of a sub-committee, and a resolution appended thereto, which was in the following words:
“‘Resolved, that in the opinion of this board, the continuance of the separate schools for colored children, and the regular attendance of all such children upon the school, is not only legal and just, but is best adapted to promote the education of that class of our population.’”
At the time of this case, there were one hundred and sixty primary schools in Boston, of which two were set apart for colored children. The facts of the case were these: A colored child applied for admission to a white school on the ground that the colored primary school was one-fifth of a mile farther from her home. The general school committee refused her admission, and the colored girl, through her father, sued the city of Boston. The Supreme Court upheld the power of the committee to provide separate schools for colored children and prohibit their attendance at other schools. The court also said: “It is urged, that this maintenance of separate schools tends to deepen and perpetuate the odious distinction of caste, founded in a deep-rooted prejudice in public opinion. This prejudice, if it exists, is not created by law, and probably cannot be changed by law. Whether this distinction and prejudice, existing in the opinion and feelings of the community, would not be as effectually fostered by compelling colored and white children to associate together in the same schools, may well be doubted; at all events, it is a fair and proper question for the committee to consider and decide upon, having in view the best interests of both classes of children placed under their superintendence, and we cannot say, that their decision upon it is not founded on just grounds of reason and experience, and in the results of a discriminating and honest judgment.” This line of argument is familiar to those who have studied the decisions of Southern courts upon the separation of the races in schools, in public conveyances, hotels, theatres, and other public places.
The attitude of the courts and legislatures of Indiana, Ohio, and Massachusetts, not one of which is a Southern State, toward the association of white and colored school children shows that there was ample precedent for the laws of the postbellum period. It is probable that a careful examination of the annual statutes of the other States before 1865 would reveal that separation was required in them also; that is, where any provision at all was made for the public instruction of Negroes. For instance, the law in Delaware[361] in 1852 was that the public school should be free to all white children of the district over five years old. The inference to be drawn is that colored children were excluded.
It is a matter of general knowledge that white and colored children are not permitted to attend the same public schools in the South. The separation is required both by State Constitutions and statutes.
The Constitutions of Alabama of 1875[362] and 1901[363] provide for a system of public schools, but add that separate schools must be maintained for white and colored children. The laws[364] of 1868 have this provision: “In no case shall it be lawful to unite in one school both colored and white children, unless it be by the unanimous consent of the parents and guardians of such children; but said trustees shall in all other cases provide separate schools for both white and colored children.” The separation is also required in the laws of 1878[365] and 1884.[366]
Arkansas has no constitutional provision as to separation, but an act[367] of 1867 reads: “No Negro or mulatto shall be permitted to attend any public school in this State, except such schools as may be established exclusively for colored persons.” And a statute of 1873[368] declares that the board of education must provide separate schools.
The Constitution[369] of Florida of 1887 provides that white and colored children shall not be taught in the same school, but that impartial provision shall be made for both. A statute[370] of 1895, which will be considered later, makes it a penal offence to educate white and Negro children in the same schools, whether public or private or parochial.
Under a Georgia statute[371] of 1866, any free white citizen between the ages of six and twenty-one years and any disabled and indigent soldier of the State under the age of thirty might have instruction in the schools free of charge. This would seem to leave out the colored children. But the Constitution[372] of 1877 requires separate schools; so do the laws of 1872.[373]
The laws of Kentucky[374] of 1870 provided that it should be the duty of the trustees of the common schools of that State to invite and encourage indigent white children in the district to attend the school, and to inform them and their parents that such was their right for which the State paid, though they themselves might contribute toward paying the expenses of the school. The annual report of the trustees must always show that this duty had been performed; and no arrangement should be made for the benefit of some individuals of this description to the exclusion of others. Again, apparently no provision was made for the colored children, but the Constitution[375] of 1891 declares that in the distribution of the school fund no distinction shall be made on account of race or color, but that separate schools must be maintained. The statute[376] of 1904, under which the Berea College case arose, applies to both public and private schools and requires a separation of the races in both.
The government of Louisiana was early in the hands of the Reconstructionists, as its statutes show. The Constitution[377] of 1868 said: “There shall be no separate schools or institutions of learning established exclusively for any race by the State of Louisiana.” A separation of the races in schools had been required by the Constitutions of 1845[378] and 1852,[379] which makes this provision of the Constitution of 1868 all the more significant. In 1871 provision was made for an institution for the instruction of the blind, and an industrial home for the blind at Baton Rouge. The statute[380] relative to these concluded thus: “... no part of this act shall be construed so as to deprive any person on account of race or color of the privilege of admittance to the institution.” A law[381] of 1875 which established an agricultural and mechanical college provided that there should be no discrimination of race or color in the admission, management, or discipline of the institution. The Constitution of 1879 did not expressly prohibit the separation of the races in schools, as that of 1868 had done, but on the other hand it did not require separation. It seems, rather, to have left the matter in the hands of the legislature. The first reference made to separate schools was in 1880, when a university was established for the education of persons of color, called the Southern University, four of the twelve trustees of which were to be Negroes.[382] Finally, the Constitution[383] of 1898 requires the general assembly to establish free public schools for the white and colored races.
A Maryland statute[384] of 1870 declared that all the taxes paid for school purposes by the colored people in any county or in the city of Baltimore, together with donations for that purpose, should be set aside for maintaining schools for colored children. The school commissioners were given power to make further appropriations as they should deem proper to assist the colored schools. A law[385] of 1872 provided that the school commissioners should establish one or more public schools in each election district for colored children, which must be kept open as long as the other public schools of the county were kept open. They are subject to the same laws and must furnish instruction in the same branches as the white schools. The taxes paid for school purposes by colored persons must be devoted to the maintenance of colored schools. This is the Maryland law,[386] in substance, as it exists at present, except that a separate school does not have to be provided in each election district unless the colored population in that district warrants the board in establishing a colored school. Where there are not enough Negroes in a district to have a school of their own, presumably, they go to the colored schools in neighboring districts.
As early as 1878 a statute of Mississippi[387] provided that schools should be arranged in each county so as to afford ample free school facilities for all educable youths in the county, prohibiting the teaching of white and colored pupils in the same school-house, and the Constitution[388] of 1890 reiterated this requirement of separation. The county school boards are given power to locate one or more schools for Indians in counties where there are enough Indians to form a school.[389]
Missouri seems not to have lost an opportunity to express its belief in separate schools for the races. The Constitution[390] of 1865 made that requirement, adding that the school fund must be appropriated in proportion to the number of children without regard to color. Such separation is required by the laws of 1865,[391] of 1868,[392] of 1869,[393] by the Constitution of 1875,[394] and by a law of 1889,[395] which last made it unlawful for colored children to attend a white school, or white children, a colored school.
The Constitution of North Carolina[396] of 1875 declares that “the children of the white and the children of the colored shall be taught in separate public schools, but there shall be no discrimination made in favor of, or to the prejudice of either race.” According to the statute[397] of 1901, a child descended from a Negro to the third generation inclusive should not attend a white school. This was amended[398] in 1903 to the effect that no child with Negro blood in his veins, “however remote the strain,” shall attend a school for the white race. The present statute[399] also provides that the descendants of Croatan Indians now living in Robeson and Richmond counties shall have separate schools for their children. It will be remembered that it is the Croatan Indians who are prohibited from intermarrying with Negroes.
The Territory of Oklahoma[400] had the following peculiar arrangement for separate schools till 1901: In each county an election was held every three years at which all the qualified school electors could vote for or against the maintenance of separate schools in that county. If a majority voted against separation, then the white and colored children might attend the same school; but if a majority voted for separation separate schools had to be provided. In counties which separate schools were voted in the schools for whites and blacks had to be equal in length of terms and in facilities. Any failure to comply with the law rendered the act for establishing separate schools void, and immediately the schools were opened to both races. In 1901[401] separate schools were required all over the Territory. In case the children of one race in a district did not exceed ten, they were to be transferred to a school for their race in another district instead of a separate school being maintained for them, provided the distance was not over two miles and a half. The white and colored schools were to be furnished with the same kind of furniture and equipment. No white teacher should teach in a colored school and vice versa. The Constitution[402] of the State of Oklahoma, adopted September 17, 1907, provides: “Separate schools for white and colored children, with like accommodation, shall be provided by the legislature and impartially maintained. The term ‘colored children,’ as used in this section, shall be construed to mean children of African descent. The term ‘white children’ shall include all other children.” An Oklahoma statute[403] of 1907 requires complete separation of the races in schools, with impartial facilities for both races. By “colored children,” it means those that have any “quantum of Negro blood.” The teacher who knowingly and willingly permits a child of one race to be taught in a school for another race is guilty of a misdemeanor, and may be punished by a fine of between ten and a hundred dollars and, in addition, may have his certificate cancelled and be unable to secure another for a year. The separation applies to private schools and colleges as well as public schools.
The South Carolina government was, like that of Louisiana, early under Reconstruction. The Constitution[404] of 1868 provided that “all the public schools, colleges and universities of this State, supported in whole or in part by the public school fund, should be free and open to all the children and youths of that State, without regard to race or color.” In fact, the University of South Carolina was open to Negroes directly after the War.[405] But the Constitution[406] of 1895 requires separate schools, and adds that “no child of either race shall ever be permitted to attend a school provided for children of the other race.” The Negro public schools of the city of Charleston are taught by white people, mostly Southern-born white people.
Tennessee, by its laws[407] of 1866, by its Constitution[408] of 1870, and by its laws[409] of 1873 requires separate public schools for the white and colored children. A statute[410] of 1901 prohibits the co-education of the white and colored races in private schools.
The Texas Constitution[411] of 1876 provided for separate schools and impartial accommodations for both races. A school-house constructed in part by voluntary subscription by colored parents and guardians and for a colored school community shall not be used without their consent for the education of white children, and vice versa.[412] The separate school requirement was repeated in the laws of 1884,[413] 1893,[414] and 1895.[415] The Texas provision is that a school which receives both white and colored pupils shall not receive any of the public school fund, which amounts to saying that it is not unlawful to educate white and colored children together in private schools.
The Constitution of Virginia of 1870 did not declare that the races must be separated in schools. But statutes of 1882[416] and 1896[417] provide that white and colored persons shall not be taught in the same school but in separate schools, under the same general regulations as to management, usefulness, and efficiency. The Virginia Constitution[418] of 1902 has the terse statement that white and colored children shall not be taught in the same school.