Jim Crow Laws: California, Colorado, Connecticut and Delaware

Jim Crow Laws: California, Colorado, Connecticut and Delaware [The editors of Americans All ] (c.1877 - c.1967) Code, Colored, Constitution, Descendant, Felony, Intermarriage, Legislature, Mulatto, Negro, Nurse, Ordinance, Penal Code, Public Transportation, Railroads, Schools, Segregation, Separate But Equal, Slavery, Statute, Supreme Court, Voting, Waiting Rooms

CALIFORNIA

Background information is provided to put the Jim Crow laws in context and explain how minorities were treated prior to the Civil War. In a few cases, the dates of specific information also have been provided. In California, concern about Asian immigration produced more legislation against Chinese immigrants than against African Americans. From 1879 to 1926, California's constitution stated that "no native of China" shall ever exercise the privileges of an elector in the state." From 1866-1947, the state enacted 17 Jim Crow laws: (6) in the areas of miscegenation, (2) in education, (1) in employment and a residential ordinance passed by the city of San Francisco that required all Chinese inhabitants to live in one area of the city. Source

1866: This California registry act [Statute] required electors to complete voter registration three months before a general election. Naturalized citizens were required to present original court-sealed naturalization papers. Source

1870: A Statue states that African and Indian children must attend separate schools. A separate school would be established upon the written request by the parents of ten such children. "A less number may be provided for in separate schools in any other manner." Source

1872: A Statute prohibited the sale of liquor to Indians. The act remained legal until its repeal in 1920. Source

1879: The Constitution stated that: "No native of China" would ever have the right to vote in the state of California. Prohibited public bodies from employing Chinese and called upon the legislature to protect "the state…from the burdens and evils arising from" their presence. A statewide anti-Chinese referendum was passed by 99.4 percent of voters in 1879. Repealed in 1926. Source

1880: A Statute made it illegal for white persons to marry a "Negro, mulatto, or Mongolian." Source

1890: The city of San Francisco ordered all Chinese inhabitants to move into a certain area of the city within six months or face imprisonment. The Bingham Ordinance was later found to be unconstitutional by a federal court. Source

1891: A Statute required all Chinese to always carry with them a "certificate of residence." Without it, a Chinese immigrant could be arrested and jailed. Source

1894: Enacted a Constitutional Amendment. Any person who could not read the Constitution in English or write his name would be disfranchised. An advisory referendum indicated that nearly 80 percent of voters supported an educational requirement. Source

1901: The 1850 law prohibiting marriage between white persons and Negroes or mulattoes was amended, adding "Mongolian." Source

1902: This education Statute repealed an earlier law barring school segregation passed in 1880. In addition to black children, Chinese and Japanese youngsters were also prohibited from attending schools designated for white children. Source

1909: Persons of Japanese descent were added to the list, by Statute, of undesirable marriage partners of white Californians as noted in the earlier 1880 statute. Source

1913: A Statute] known as the "Alien Land Laws," decreed that Asian immigrants were prohibited from owning or leasing property. The California Supreme Court struck down the Alien Land Laws in 1952. Source

1931: A new State Code prohibited marriages between persons of the Caucasian and Asian races. Source

1933: This Statute broadened earlier miscegenation statute to also prohibit marriages between whites and Malays. Source

1937: Further reinforcement that marriage between Whites and Negroes, Mongolians, Malayans or Mulattoes is illegal and void and prohibited. Source is: CAL. CIVIL. CODE, & 60 (Deering)

1945: This Statute Prohibited marriage between whites and "Negroes, mulattos, Mongolians and Malays." Source

1945: Gonzalo Mendez's children were not allowed to attend Westminster Main School, the same school that he had attended with other Mexican and Anglo children until he was forced to drop out to help support his family. They were forced to attend the Hoover School, which was in a different school district, and furthermore, all of the students there were Mexican or Mexican-American. He sued, Mendez v. Westminster School District of Orange County, (64 F. Supp. 544, C.D. Cal. 1946). The legal issue: Does the segregation of Mexican-American public school children in the absence of a state law mandating their segregation violate California law as well as the equal protection of the law clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution? Judge Paul McCormick ruled first that the segregation violated California’s own laws, but then he went on “to suggest a new interpretation of the federal equal protection clause.” “A paramount requisite in the American system of public education is social equality. It must be open to all children by unified school association regardless of lineage.” “That, simply stated, was a declaration that ‘separate but equal’ was not equal.” Source

1947: This Miscegenation Statute subjected U.S. servicemen and Japanese women who wanted to marry to undergo rigorous background checks. It barred the marriage of Japanese women to white servicemen if they were employed in undesirable occupations. Source

COLORADO

Background information is provided to put the Jim Crow laws in context and explain how minorities were treated prior to the Civil War. In a few cases, the dates of specific information also have been provided. Colorado passed three Jim Crow laws between 1864 and 1908, all concerning miscegenation. Marriage between Negroes and mulattoes, and white persons "absolutely void." Source

1865: Colorado’s lawmakers submitted both a new proposed constitution and the issue of black male voting rights in the territory to a public vote. Voters approved the new constitution and prohibited black suffrage. Source is “The Constitutional Amendment,” Rocky Mountain Daily News, November 18, 1865. Western History and Genealogy Department, Denver Public Library.

1913: A railroad foreman in Alamosa tried to enroll his 11-year-old son in the school closest to the family home. The school district denied him, and instead forced Miguel Maestas to walk seven blocks across dangerous railroad tracks to what was known as the Mexican School. Source Maestas and other Mexican American families sued the southern Colorado district Francisco Maestas et al. vs. George H. Shone et al in what is the earliest known school desegregation case in the United States involving Latino students. Source

1920s: African Americans were often not welcome in Colorado’s growing mountain resort communities except as personal servants in the company of white employers. Lincoln Hills was an1100-acre retreat that served as a testament to the color-based hierarchy of privileges and burdens that was common in early twentieth-century Colorado. The Colorado Ku Klux Klan enjoyed a popularity that placed it amongst the largest Klan organizations in the United States. Long after the decline of the Klan in Colorado during the later 1920s, a racist web of exclusion and discrimination remained, and ensnared thousands of black, Asian, Jewish, Latino, and Native American people. Source

1930: Miscegenation declared a misdemeanor. Source

1935: Anti-Miscegenation prohibited marriage between Whites and Negroes or Mulattoes. It was an absolute misdemeanor. Source

1940’s: it was legal for housing covenants to specifically bar non-white residents from renting or owning homes—and they did, routinely. Source

CONNECTICUT

Background information is provided to put the Jim Crow laws in context and explain how minorities were treated prior to the Civil War. In a few cases, the dates of specific information also have been provided. Since 1855, Connecticut’s state constitution had required adults to pass a literacy test and a one-year residency rule to qualify as a voter. Source As far back as 1717, citizens of New London, Connecticut, in a town meeting voted their objection to free blacks living in the town or owning land anywhere in the colony. That year, the colonial assembly passed a law in accordance with this sentiment, prohibiting free blacks or mulattoes from residing in any town in the colony. It also forbids them to buy land or go into business without the consent of the town. The provisions were retroactive, so that if any black person had managed to buy land, the deed was rendered void, and a black resident of a town, however long he had been there, was now subject to prosecution at the discretion of the selectmen. Source In 1784, the state had prohibited blacks from entering because "sound public policy requires that importation be prohibited in order that white labor may be protected and that "the increase of slaves is injurious to the poor." Source Between 1913 and 1948, 30 out of the then 48 states enforced anti-miscegenation laws. Connecticut never enacted them.

1865: A segregated company was raised in the Fifth battalion of the Connecticut National Guard so that men of color in New Haven could serve their state. In 1949, segregation is outlawed in the Connecticut National Guard. Source

1869: The Statute created school segregation. Source

1935: Upheld school segregation as originally authorized by statute of 1869. Source

Current voting issues: Outside of the South, deep blue and deeply segregated Connecticut has some of the most restrictive voting laws in the country. t’s one of a handful of states that does not allow early voting. It is one of 36 states with a law allowing local officials to demand ID from voters before their ballot is cast, a practice proven to disproportionately prevent people of color and the poor from voting. Source

DELAWARE

Background information is provided to put the Jim Crow laws in context and explain how minorities were treated prior to the Civil War. In a few cases, the dates of specific information also have been provided. Prior to the Civil War, free blacks suffered from many legal discriminatory practices. They needed passes signed by white men to leave the state, and if they were absent more than six months, they could not return. Free blacks from other states were not permitted to move to Delaware. Source From the 1920s and for more than four decades after that, Delaware’s public schools operated under the separate but equal doctrine. Appalled by Delaware’s schools, industrialist and philanthropist Pierre S. du Pont took interest in how Delaware’s coloreds were being educated. Du Pont also questioned the way school taxes were levied. Then came the 1954 decision of Brown v. Board of Education, when the Supreme Court unanimously ruled separate but equal schools unconstitutional. In 1955, the justices handed down a plan for desegregation to proceed with ‘all deliberate speed.’ Still, it would be many years before all segregated school systems were to be desegregated. Source

1865: Following emancipation, the Delaware Legislature began to place even more limitations on African American citizenship. Politicians lost no time in forging an anti-black agenda, especially the Democrats who did not favor emancipation. As Governor Saulsbury said in his inaugural address earlier in the year, the true position of the Negro was as a subordinate race excluded from all political and social privileges. Source

1866: The Democratic legislature resolved that blacks were not the political or social equal of whites. These statements were probably typical of how many white Delawareans felt on the racial issue and were like those expressed in the Southern states. The legislature soon found ways to prevent blacks from exercising full citizenship. These measures were so successful that Ku Klux Klan activities in Delaware, during this time were limited. Source

1875: Legislators passed a "Jim Crow" law which virtually made black Delawareans second-class citizens. The law was not appealed until 1963. Source

1880: A U.S. Supreme Court decision Neal v. Delaware (103 U.S. 370) ruled that William Neal could not be convicted of rape and murder because blacks were excluded from jury duty. As a result, Moses America, a black man, was summoned to jury duty in 1881, but blacks were not freely called thereafter. Blacks were also excluded from the practice of law. Black firemen and policemen were still not hired. Source

1915: (Rev. 1921): Marriage between Whites and Negroes or Mulattoes is prohibited. Source

1920s: During this period, and for more than four decades after that, the public schools operated under the separate but equal doctrine. school segregation persisted until 1967. Source

1921: A State Anti-Miscegenation Statute made marriage between Whites and Negroes or Mulattoes is a misdemeanor and void if done. Source is: REV. CODE. & 2992 (1915) amended by Sess. Laws, p.578

1930s: When the Works Progress Administration (WPA) studied blacks in the 1930s, writers found that a "color line" existed, especially in the southern part of Delaware. White Delawareans below Wilmington claimed they had no objection to associating with blacks as long as they "stayed in their place," but, in reality, there was little association between the races except at the bottom levels of both groups or by wealthy whites who employed servants. In northern Delaware, blacks were granted theoretical equality, though there was little intimate or general association with whites. Blacks could sit anywhere in public conveyances and patronize public libraries and parks, but they were excluded from theaters, restaurants, and hotels. They had their own schools and usually attended services in their own churches. Overall, black Wilmingtonians had more freedom than fellow blacks in southern Delaware. Source

Photograph credits: Unless otherwise identified, all images are in the Public Domain. Images with "LC-" are from the Library of Congress. Portrait image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jim_Crow_Jubilee_(Boston_Public_Library).jpg, Call Number: no. 35 of **M.450.172; 1. National Park Service Archives; 2. https://www.nps.gov/heritageinitiatives/latino/latinothemestudy/images/Discrimination.jpg; 3. LC-USZC2-1058, Erhart from Puck, 2-26-1913; 4. https://guides.ll.georgetown.edu/c.php?g=592919&p=4172697; 5. LC-USF33-013296-M5; 6. http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1248, Courtesy of the Birmingham Public Library Archives; 7. LC-USZC4-2399, Thomas Kelly; 8. https://pt.slideshare.net/ehfodor/chap19-11530853; 9. Black History Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (024.00.00), //www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-rights-act/segregation-era.html#obj024; 10. LC-USF33-1661-M3; 11. LC-USF33-20513-M2, Jack Delano.

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