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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - VI. Justice - 24. Inequality of Justice - 3. The Southern Heritage
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534 An American Dilemma
behind this development has already been discussed.® In the legal sphere
the influence of the federal courts and, in particular, the Supreme Court,
is probably stronger than in the political sphere. The North has never
compromised with the South on the principle of equality before the law
to the same degree as it has on the principle of universal suffrage. And
the group of people in the South who are prepared to take a stand for the
former principle is—according to the present writer’s definite impressions
—considerably larger than the group standing for the latter principle. It
may, therefore, be expected that there will be an even more rapid develop-
ment in the field of justice in the near future than at the present time.
The lingering inequality in justice in the South is ’probably due more to
low and lagging professional standards—certainly among the police^ and
in many regions even among the lawyers who are willing to enter into
court service—than it is to opinion in favor of legal inequality. Negroes in
all classes perceive clearly and intensely that the best protection they can
hope for is to receive the rights and privileges guaranteed them by law.
While lack of legal justice can be considered in itself as crucial to the
peace and sanity of the South, this problem is interrelated with many
others. When the Negro is discriminated against by the police, in court,
and in private dealings with whites, this is made more possible by his
poverty, his lack of political influence and his social abasement. An im-
provement in any of these fields will reflect itself in a greater security
before the law. On the other hand, inequality in justice is undoubtedly
responsible for no small part of the Negro’s difficulties in rising econom-
ically and socially.**
See Chapter 21, Section 4.
^ The following survey of the facts relative to the administration of legal justice to the
Negro in the South is based largely on a series of unpublished studies made for our inquiry
by Arthur Raper, summarized in **Race and Class Pressures” (1940). These studies were
made in localities all over the South, but emphasize conditions prevailing in the Lower
South. For this reason, we shall sometimes fail to report in detail modifications of the
general patterns that occur in many communities of the Upper and Border South. These
modifications should not be underestimated as they are significant not only as frequent
exceptions, but also as indications of change. In general, it might be said that the farther
northward one goes in the South, the more similarities he finds to the stronger legal tradi-
tions of the North. This does not mean that the gradation is smooth as one travels north-
ward from the Gulf of Mexico: the break at the Mason-Dixon line is so sharp that one
cannot doubt that the Upper South is more like the Lower South than it is like the North.
Too, many urban areas of the Lower South have as strong a legal structure as the average
community in the Upper South.
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