Thirteen States provide that barbers must serve all persons without regard to race or color.
In 1889 a barber in Lincoln, Nebraska, refused to shave a Negro because he was “colored.” The Civil Rights Bill of that State mentions barbers. The court[[272]] held: “A barber, by opening a shop and putting out his sign, thereby invites every orderly and well-behaved person who may desire his services to enter his shop during business hours. The statute will not permit him to say to one, you were a slave or the son of a slave, therefore I will not shave you. Such prejudices are unworthy of our better manhood, and are clearly prohibited by the statute.” Barber-shops were included within the provisions of the Massachusetts Civil Rights Bill in 1893, but, as a matter of fact, Negroes are not even now given the same accommodations as whites in barber-shops in Massachusetts.
The statute of Connecticut requires equality of service in “places of public accommodation.” A barber refused to serve one Faulkner because he was a Negro, and the latter brought suit on the ground that a barber-shop is a place of public accommodation and, hence, within the Civil Rights Bill of the State. The court[[273]] held that the barber-shop is not, in its nature, different from the places of business run for private gain, and that the common law has never recognized it as possessing the quality of a place of public accommodation, as a hotel, public conveyance, etc.
It may be added here that most of the cases have involved the point as to what are places of public accommodation or amusement or resort. If the place is mentioned in the Civil Rights Bill, it is, of course, within the prohibition, and it is a violation of the statute even to require separate accommodations, although equal in every other respect. But a vast deal of litigation has arisen out of instances of Negroes being denied accommodation in places considered public in their nature but which are not mentioned in the Civil Rights Bill of the State wherein the case arises.
BOOTBLACK STANDS
In the year 1901, Basso, a bootblack in the basement of one of the business houses of Rochester, New York, refused to serve Burks because the latter was a Negro. The law of New York, as has been seen, requires full and equal accommodations in hotels and “other places of public accommodation.” The question, therefore, was: Is a bootblack stand a place of “public accommodation”? The municipal court of Rochester, in which Burks brought suit, gave judgment for him, thereby answering the question in the affirmative. The county court reversed the decision. The appellate division reversed the county court and sustained the municipal. The court of appeals[[274]] reversed the appellate division thereby sustaining the county court, saying: “A bootblacking stand may be said to be a place of public accommodation, like the store of a dry goods merchant, a grocer, or the proverbial ‘butcher, baker, and candlestick maker’; but that is very far from placing it in the same category with the places specifically named in the statute. Inns, hotels, and public conveyances are places of public accommodation in the broadest sense, because they have always been denominated as such under the common law. Bath-houses and barber-shops are not to be regarded as included within the statute under the general phrase, ‘and all other places of public accommodation.’ There is no more relation between a bootblacking stand and a public conveyance than there is between a theatre or music-hall and a bath-house or barber-shop. There is, it is true, a superficial resemblance between the occupation of the barber and that of the bootblack, in the sense that both minister to the personal comfort and convenience of others; but the same argument could be extended far beyond the limits necessary to demonstrate that not ‘all other places of public accommodation’ are included by relation within the category of the things specifically enumerated in the statute.”
BILLIARD-ROOMS
In Massachusetts in 1866, a certain Negro was refused, because of his race or color, the use of a billiard-room. At that time a statute of the Commonwealth required equal accommodation in public places of amusement. The Supreme Court[[275]] of Massachusetts, in which the Negro’s case was finally heard, held that there was no proof that the room was licensed, and added: “It cannot be supposed that it was the intent of the legislature to prescribe the manner in which persons should use their own premises or permit others to use them, if they did not carry on therein an occupation or business, or suffer other persons to appropriate them to a purpose, which required a license in order to render such an appropriation lawful.”
SALOONS
Only two States, Minnesota and Wisconsin, mention saloons in their Civil Rights Bills. And in Minnesota, they were not added till 1899, as a result of the following case: A Negro was denied accommodation in a saloon. At that time, the statute required equal accommodations in inns and “places of public resort, refreshment, accommodation, or entertainment.” The court[[276]] of that State, in passing on the case, held that a saloon is not among the other “places of public refreshment.” The court suggests that “or other” means “other such like” and includes only places of the same nature as those already mentioned specifically in the statute. About the Negro, the court said: “It is a well-known fact that, owing to an unreasonable race prejudice which still exists to some extent, the promiscuous entertainment of persons of different races in places where intoxicating drinks are sold not infrequently result in personal conflicts, especially when the passions of men are inflamed by liquor. Hence the legislature might have omitted saloons for that reason.” The next year the legislature answered otherwise by adding saloons to the Civil Rights Bill.