The Negro goes into a court room in one or more of six capacities, namely: as spectator, witness, juror, party to a suit, attorney, or judge. It is in each of these capacities that the Negro in the court room is to be considered, but some of them permit of only brief mention. How the Negro actually fares in the court room—whether he gets justice as often as the white person does, whether his testimony has as much weight with the jury and court as that of the white witness, whether the Negro attorney or judge is accorded as much courtesy as the white man in a similar position—would make an interesting and profitable study, but such a study is largely outside the field of this investigation. It should be kept in mind now, as in the previous chapters, that only those distinctions are considered which have come within the pale of the law since 1865, either in the form of statutory enactment or judicial decision. Where mention is made of some of the actual extralegal race distinctions in the court room, it is only for illustration.
AS SPECTATOR
The court room, while the court is in session, is open to all citizens, regardless of race or color. No instance has been found either in the statutes or judicial reports of one’s admission to or exclusion from the court room being dependent upon his race or color. It is to be noticed, however, in Southern court rooms that the spectators are separated by race, Negroes usually occupying seats on one side of the room and white people on the other. This must be entirely a matter of custom, as no case has been found of such separation being required by law or ordinance. While this point has not been deemed important enough for a special investigation, it is presumed that one will find the races separated in the court room in those States or communities where they are separated in other places—as in public conveyances, schools, and churches.
A Negro in the South, as elsewhere, has, legally and actually, as good an opportunity to observe court proceedings as a white person, though custom may require him to sit in a different part of the court room from that occupied by the latter.
AS JUDGE
Little within the scope of this chapter can be said of the Negro as a judge. There are cases still in the North of Negroes sitting on the bench, mostly in lower courts, and there may be instances, here and there, in the South, of Negroes holding judicial offices. Certainly, the Negro elector is eligible, both under Federal and State Constitutions, to hold a judgeship. Whether or not there are Negroes on the bench in a given State is not determined by the legislatures or the courts, but by the appointing power or by the choice of the people at the polls.
AS LAWYER
A Negro is eligible to practice law in every State; that is, nothing to the contrary appears in any of the State or Federal statutes now in force. Negroes may be admitted to the bar everywhere upon proving the same qualifications and passing the same examinations as required of other applicants for license. But this has not always been so. The privilege of practicing law in Iowa,[[589]] for instance, was, until 1870, restricted to white males. In that year it was extended to women and to members of other races than the white. Only one State appears to have considered it needful to guarantee by statutory enactment the right to practice law to the Negro. An act of the Colorado[[590]] legislature in 1897 reads: “No persons shall be denied the right to practice as aforesaid on account of race or sex.”
In 1877, a Negro, with a license to practice law in Massachusetts and the Circuit and District courts of the United States in the city of Baltimore, applied for a license to practice in the State courts of Maryland. The laws of Maryland[[591]] of 1872 limited the privilege of admission to the bar to white male citizens. The Negro brought suit because he was refused admission to the Maryland bar, and the Court of Appeals of Maryland[[592]] held that the State had a right to limit the privilege of practicing law to white males, holding that such a limitation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. The court said, in part: “The privilege of admission to the office of an attorney cannot be said to be a right or immunity belonging to the citizen, but is governed and regulated by the Legislature, which may prescribe the qualifications required and designate the class of persons who may be admitted. The power of regulating the admission of attorneys in the courts of a State is one belonging to the State, and not to the Federal Government. As said by Mr. Justice Bradley in Bradwell’s case:[[593]] ‘In the nature of things it is not every citizen of every age, sex and condition that is qualified for every calling and position. It is the prerogative of the legislator to prescribe regulations founded on nature, reason and experience, for the due admission of qualified persons to professions and callings demanding special skill and confidence. This fairly belongs to the police power of the State.’” According to the opinion in this case, which has not been overruled so far as has been found, a State legislature may, in the exercise of its police power, limit the privilege of practicing law to white males or to white people, and thus debar the Negro altogether. In the latest collection of Maryland laws, however, that of 1904, no mention is made of race in the prescribed qualifications for admission to the bar, but no express repeal has been found in the annual statutes of the law of 1872 which limited the privilege of practicing law to white males. The presumption is, however, that Maryland, in common with the other States, now admits Negro applicants on the same terms as white.
It is generally known that Negro lawyers in the Southern States are few, and it is considered that the field there for the Negro lawyer is not promising. There were seven hundred and twenty-eight Negro lawyers in the United States in 1900. The following notice in The Emmanuel Magazine of July 3, 1909, a monthly publication by a Negro in Washington, North Carolina, is interesting in this connection: “Mr. E. W. Canady, a respectable colored lawyer of Durham, N. C., not long since received three thousand four hundred dollars for his service at the bar in representing one case. This speaks more for him than anything else possibly could. It shows the public’s confidence in his ability both as a lawyer and a gentleman of integrity. It also shows that, at least in some cases, a Negro can get justice in a Southern court, not only for himself, but for others. The profession of law is the most difficult one a colored man can follow in the South, because he must deal with white judges, white jurors, white lawyers, and, sometimes, white witnesses, and a public sentiment which is created by the whites. If he keep his soul well equipoised and act gently and manfully—not bootlicking, but seeking the peace of the city wherein he dwelleth, as Jeremiah advised the Jews of Babylon to do, he can fare equally as well, if not better, in the South as he can in the North. I was not a little surprised when I asked Mr. Canady how the judges treated him and he said, ‘Oh, they’ll treat you all right, if you act rightly; they are bound to follow the law, you know.’ This should encourage more young men to take up this profession.”