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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - VI. Justice - 26. Courts, Sentences and Prisons - 1. The Southern Courts - 2. Discrimination in Court
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550 An American Dilemma
calling or using them in trials. . . . North Carolina and Virginia have taken the
decisions more seriously. Even in these states, however, numerous courts have merely
ignored the matter.
It is the general assumption that the use of Negro jurors need not be considered
except in those court sessions in which Negro defendants are being tried on serious
charges. Even a capital oflFense against a Negro does not raise the all-white jury
issue unless local officials have reason to believe the case might be appealed on this
ground.^^
To this should be added that Negro lawyers are scarce in the South.*
In some places, Negro lawyers are not allowed to appear in courts, and
even where they are allowed, they tend to stay away. Most of them seem
to be engaged in settling matters outside of court or working in real estate
or insurance offices or giving legal advice. Their white business is mainly
restricted to debt collection among Negroes. In law suits they may work
with white lawyers but do not appear much before the courts themselves.
Negro clients know that a Negro lawyer is not much use in a Southern
courtroom.^^ Lower class Negroes sometimes believe that Negro lawyers
are not permitted in courtrooms even where they are permitted. There
are other handicaps for Negro lawyers: their clients are usually poorj they
cannot afford extensive equipment they have not had the experience of
handling important cases 5
they cannot specialize.
2. Discrimination in Court
In a court system of this structure, operating within a deeply prejudiced
region, discrimination is to be expected. The danger is especially strong in
lower courts where the pressure of local public opinion is most strongly
felt, and where the judges often are men of limited education and provin-
cial background.
In civil cases the average Negro will not only be up against the inability
of meeting the costs involved in a successful litigation—this he shares with
the poor white man in the South and elsewhere—^but, when his adversary
is a white man, he also encounters white solidarity. Greater reliance is
ordinarily given a white man’s testimony than a Negro’s. This follows an
old tradition in the South, fron^ slavery times, when a Negro’s testimony
against a white man was disregarded j
and the white judge may justify his
partisanship by what he feels to be his experience that Negroes are often
actually unreliable. It also fits into a pattern of thinking that it is dangerous
for the social order to allow Negroes to vindicate their rights against white
people. The writer has, however, frequently been told by Negroes and
whites in the South that it is becoming more and more common that
judges, with the consent of white society, stand up for giving the Negroes
what IS due them as long as it concerns merely their property rights.
*See Chapter 14, Section 7.
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