“That it shall be the duty of said commissioners to provide suitable and convenient houses or rooms for holding schools for colored children....” The commissioner might impose a tax of fifty cents per capita upon the patrons of the school to aid in its support, but no child should be excluded because its parents or guardians could not pay the tax. The school fund was to be divided in proportion to the number of school children, regardless of race.
In 1890 an increase of the Federal appropriation[[485]] to schools was accompanied with the following proviso: “That no money shall be paid out under this act to any State or Territory for the support or maintenance of a college where a distinction of race or color is made on the admission of students, but the establishment and maintenance of such colleges separately for white and colored students shall be held to be a compliance with the provisions of the act, if the funds received in such State or territory be equitably divided as hereinafter set forth.”
SEPARATION IN PRIVATE SCHOOLS
Thus far, except in the matter of Berea College, the separation of the races in private schools only has been considered. Legislation as to private schools is comparatively meagre. A statute[[486]] of Florida of 1895 makes it a penal offence to conduct a school of any grade—public, private, or parochial—wherein white persons and Negroes are instructed or boarded within the same building, or taught in the same class, or at the same time by the same teacher. The punishment for violating the law by patronizing or teaching in such a school is a fine of from one hundred and fifty to five hundred dollars, or imprisonment from three to six months. A statute[[487]] of Tennessee of 1901 makes it lawful for any school, academy, or other place of learning to receive both white and colored pupils at the same time. It is unlawful for any teacher to allow them to attend the same school or to teach them together or to allow them to be taught together, under a penalty of fifty dollars for each offence and imprisonment from thirty days to six months. The most recent statute on the subject of private schools is that of Oklahoma in 1908. It is plainly modeled after the Kentucky law of 1904. Under the Oklahoma statute,[[488]] it is unlawful for a person, corporation, or association of persons to maintain or operate any college, school, or institution where persons of the white and colored races are both received as pupils for instruction. The person, corporation, or association that operates a school in violation of the statute is guilty of a misdemeanor, and may be fined not less than one hundred nor more than five hundred dollars. Each day such a school is kept open is a separate offence. One who teaches in such a school is guilty of a misdemeanor and may be fined from ten to fifty dollars for each day. One who goes to such a school as a pupil may be fined from five to twenty dollars for each day. It is not unlawful, however, for a private school to maintain a separate and distinct branch thereof “in a different locality.” The Kentucky statute, it will be remembered, required the separate branch to be, at least, twenty-five miles from the main school. The Oklahoma legislature declared that it was necessary “for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, and safety” that this act take effect at once.
Florida, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Tennessee are the only States that expressly prohibit the teaching of white and colored persons in the same private school. Other States—as Georgia and Texas—declare that, if a school admits both races, it shall have none of the public school fund, saying, by implication, that one may operate a school for both races if he will give up his claim to State aid. On the other hand, Minnesota has enacted a statute to the effect that, if a school refuses to admit pupils of both races, it shall have none of the public school fund, thus saying, by implication, that it is not unlawful to conduct a private school exclusively for one race. The recent decision of the Supreme Court of Michigan to the effect that a private school may exclude Negroes even though the law of the State requires public schools to be open to all, regardless of race or color, has been considered.
EQUALITY OF ACCOMMODATIONS
In general, the “accommodations, advantages, and facilities” of schools for Negroes are to be equal to those for white children, but the requirement has, in many cases, been loosely construed. It has been held in Missouri[[489]] and Ohio,[[490]] for instance, that it is not an unjust discrimination for the colored children to have to walk farther to school than the white children. The Supreme Court[[491]] of Kansas in 1903 decided that uniformity of schools for white and colored children did not require equality of buildings. The court said: “True, for the accommodation of a numerous white population a much larger and more imposing school building is provided than that set apart for the few colored children in the district. This, however, is but an incidental matter, and necessarily unavoidable in the administration of any extended school system. School-houses cannot be identical in every respect; but parents cannot, on this account, dictate the one their children shall attend.”
The County Board of Education of Richmond County, Georgia, in 1880, established a high school for Negroes, but in 1897 it was discontinued for economic reasons, because the money to educate fifty or sixty Negroes in the high school would give the rudiments of education to two hundred of the four hundred young Negroes in the county who were crowded out. It was understood that the school would be re-opened as soon as economic considerations permitted. A Negro brought suit against the board for discrimination against his race in that the white high school to which the Board made contributions had not been closed also. The Supreme Court of that State held[[492]] that the Board had the right to establish or discontinue high schools when the interests and convenience of the people require it. There were more white children of the high-school grade than colored; therefore, the court argued, the Board was justified in continuing the white high school. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court[[493]] of the United States, which affirmed the decision of the State court. Mr. Justice Harlan, delivering the opinion of the court, said: “... while all admit that the benefits and burdens of public taxation must be shared by the citizens without discrimination against any class on account of their race, the education of the people in the schools maintained by State taxation is a matter belonging to the respective States, and any interference on the part of the Federal authority with the management of such schools cannot be justified except in the case of clear and unmistakable disregard of rights secured by the supreme law of the land.”
In general, where separate schools are required, it is said that they must be equal for both races; but it has been held that it is not an unjust discrimination to build more imposing school-houses for the many white children than for the few colored children; to require the children of one race to walk farther to school than the other, or to maintain high schools for one race without doing so for the other. Only a very few States have escaped altogether the question of the separation of the races in schools. Even where the State statutes have declared point-blank by statute that there shall be no distinction on account of race or color, the suits that have arisen in those States show that the school boards have tried to evade the law.