Race Distinctions in American Law

by Gilbert Thomas Stephenson

Louisiana.—Parish No. 1, 3,900 white people, 12,700 Negroes: “... we now have no Negroes to serve on the jury here at all. Some years ago we had Negro jurors, but they proved so unsatisfactory that they were gradually dropped out and for several years [we] have had no Negroes at all.”

Parish No. 2, 8,800 white people, 11,300 Negroes: “... Negroes serve as jurors in this parish to a limited extent. The jury commissioners, when they know of an exceptionally good, honest, sober and industrious Negro, have no objections to placing his name in the jury-box. It is true, however, that the number is very limited, owing to the fact that very few Negroes will come to the standard as far as the above qualifications are concerned. Out of the 300 names in the jury-box from which we draw our juries, there are about a dozen Negroes. The Negroes as jurors do not give any trouble; they always follow the suggestions and advice of the white jurors.”

Parish No. 3, 11,000 white people, 17,800 Negroes: “... in this parish Negroes have served on both our grand and petit juries ever since the Civil War. Only the very best of our Negroes are drawn on the jury; they usually constitute about one-half of the panel on the petit jury and on the grand jury they are always represented, but in a much smaller proportion. The number of Negroes with us fit for jury service is not increasing as one would think would be the case considering their advantage for an education. They render very good service, rather prone to convict in serious personal injury cases, inflict capital punishment more readily than white juries and generally want all law enforced, especially against bad men of their own race, as they know this is their best protection.”

Parish No. 4, 2,000 white people, 13,700 Negroes: “... we have had one Negro on the petit jury the last criminal term of court in a murder case of another Negro. He is the only Negro that has sat on the jury for two or three years in our parish. We do not allow any Negroes to sit on the grand jury in our parish. There are three names of Negroes in the jury-box that we draw our general venire from, as well as I remember, possibly one or two more, but not more than that number, as well as I remember. We used to have as many Negroes as white jurors here ten or twelve years ago.”

Mississippi.—County No. 1, 4,000 white people, 31,000 Negroes: “... Negroes do serve on juries in our circuit courts, also in our magistrate’s court. As to the extent Negro jurors serve Negro jurors are decreasing in late years. It requires certain qualifications to make them competent under the Constitution of the State of Mississippi, to-wit: Every male inhabitant of the State, except idiots, insane persons, and Indians not taxed, who is a citizen of the United States, twenty-one years old and upwards, who resided in the State two years, and one year in the election district, or in the incorporated city or town in which he offers to vote, and who is duly registered, and has never been convicted of bribery, burglary, theft, arson, obtaining money or goods under false pretenses, perjury, forgery, embezzlement or bigamy, and who has paid, on or before the first day of February of the year in which he shall offer to vote, all taxes which have been legally required of him, and is able to read any section of the Constitution of the State, or is able to understand the same, when read to him, is a qualified voter, and can be a member of either our grand jury or a petit jury if drawn as such. Our Negro jurors are either ministers or school teachers, with some farmers. The majority of them fail to pay their taxes, which disqualifies them from jury service. Negro jurors are not regarded by our courts as good jurymen, but we are compelled to use them when drawn and they are qualified to serve.”

County No. 2, 8,000 white people, 11,700 Negroes: “... Negroes sitting on jury and paying poll-tax is a thing of the past in my county. Only about 25 or 30 [are] registered. Disfranchised on educational qualification.”

County No. 3, 3,000 white people, 23,000 Negroes: “In my judicial district there are five counties, in three of which Negroes serve upon the juries in about the proportion that they are qualified under the law. The qualifications for jurors are very strict in this State and comparatively few Negroes can qualify legally. In limited numbers they make very satisfactory jurors when the rights of their people are involved. As a rule, a Negro does not like to try a white man’s case; they are much more inclined to convict Negroes charged with crime than are the white jurors, and Negro defendants always challenge Negro jurors. In the ‘Black Belt’ of Mississippi, a Negro can always receive a fair trial in the courts, but this is not so certain in the white counties. In the two counties where Negroes do not serve upon the juries, there are practically no Negroes qualified under the law, because none are registered voters.”

County No. 4, 6,000 white people, 18,000 Negroes: “We don’t have any Negro jurors at all in this county. We have very few registered Negroes in the county.”

County No. 5, 7,000 white people, 7,000 Negroes: “... Negroes do sit on juries in this county at times. They have a right to serve as jurors when they have duly registered and paid their tax and some other qualifications.... But the Board of Supervisors draws the names of 200 or more persons on the first Monday of January in each year and puts them in a box, so many for each supervisor’s district. But of late years the supervisors have not put many names of Negroes in the jury-box; therefore, we have not had very [many] Negro jurors. But we have one or two Negro jurors nearly every term of our court [circuit court]....”

County No. 6, 8,000 white people, 28,700 Negroes: “The jury law in this State makes no discrimination on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, and no man is excluded from the jury on account of his color.... In some of the counties of the State, the boards of supervisors select some Negroes for jury service, but the great trouble is, there are comparatively few Negroes in any county, and none in some of the counties, who can measure up to the qualifications prescribed by law.... The criminal element in Mississippi is composed largely of the Negro race, and as a matter of fact, the persons of that race charged with crime and the lawyers who defend them, the large majority of whom are of the white race, do not want Negroes on the jury, and Negroes are almost invariably challenged. If Negroes chance to be summoned on a special venire in a capital case with white men, they [the Negroes] disqualify to avoid service, sometimes by claiming that they are not registered voters, but generally by claiming that they are opposed to the death penalty.