University of Central Florida STARS PRISM: Political & Rights Issues & Social Movements 1-1-1952 America's racist laws Herbert Aptheker Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/prism University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Book is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in PRISM: Political & Rights Issues & Social Movements by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Recommended Citation Aptheker, Herbert, "America's racist laws" (1952). PRISM: Political & Rights Issues & Social Movements. 427. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/prism/427 america's racist laws AMERICA'S RACIST LAWS MASSES & MAINSTREAM 1952 ABOUT THE AUTHOR IXERBmT AFKHKER is an Associate Editor of Mas18~& Msia- she- and an insmaor in history at the J&tmSchool of Social Science in New York Citg. He holds a Ph. l). degree from Columbia Universiey and was a Guggecheim Fellow in History, 1946-7. He is the author of wedbooks, including AhmNegro Save Revoks, Essqs in the History of $be Akcm Negro, The Negro PmpB in Ammmmand To Be Fwe. His htwork, A DO- Hdzory of zbe Negro psopk ha the Uadd Swes, was published September, 2951. Dr. Aptbehr send in the Field Artillery for ova Ewr years during World War 11, beginning as a private aad ending as a major. P~Qkb3by MASSIS& MAIM~~M,832 Broadway, New Ywk 3. N. Y. January, 1952 ao* PRINTBD IN U.S.A. HOCKJMG!" "Incredible!" Such were rypicai mpnses from lead- 's ing American poblications m the lnwa decreed by Hlda at Nurcm- berg in 1935. The Nazis acted, as their seanrtes said, "for the p- tion of Geman Hood and German honor." Tbcg hand fmn citi- zenship all qt&me "of.Getman or kindred blood" (Ammuddm Bhtes) and bcwho, by their conduct, showed a w~gnessad a fimes 'to serve ftK Thitd Rcirh. The ie@suation by "race" of dl inhabitan= of the Re& was re- quired; Jewish children were to attend qame schoofs; Jews and "Aryans" were forbidden to many. In brief, decIared the St. Louis TimssS~,he Nuremkg laws ~presentda state of "dd distemper, . out of keeping with the modern world, d peddy in keeping with the Middle -ally the Nazis mfdgreat indebtednas to the United Stam for having provided them with a model for their own &st legisla- rim. Thus, one of their lading profwrs of jurispmdeaq Dr. Hch- rich Kriep, devoted a voInm-Dm Rlarsdt k dm V$r&igcm Stllatm (Bedin, 1936)--to an admiring exambarion of ttre US theory adpmctke of racism. Arrd what of dy? Now the sublimity of the pretense grows ab the hideousness of the dyincreasm. Solemnly, tke United States as a participt in the First ][am-Amerim %nographic Con- held in Mmim City ia 1943, promises the tejeetiw of "dl palicg and aU action of &a1 &hnbtioaH Two years latter the U.S. pmki- paced with the Iath-American awrnaies in signing the Act of Qa. pul~pec:'The world's pce motbe ddaml uadl mm ace abIe to exercise their basic sights without disrindon as w race or religion." The war then raging as terrible proof of the rmth of a- 3 pultepec is -nard with the Potsdam Agreemeat in which tbe U.S. joins in demanding that "All Nazi laws which . embW di- crimiaatim on grounds of me, d or political opinion shall be abolished. No such discrimination, whetber legal, l,rive or ohem* shall be tobred." And in becoming a membm of the United Natioas, the United Statcs pledged adhePeace to ifs Wlamr which givm as one basic purpose of the organization to "promote re- spfor, and the obswvance of, buman rights and fwdamcntal free- dom for all without distinction as to me." pmue&epomi(qwb.tofrbe&?~tsrr&cbcm- c?eming racist legislation h the United Sotes day? The structure of the Amerh m*al & is exploimrivc, and ia- tegrai m that stmcture ha been and is the sup-oppmsion of the Negxo people within its borders addosed peopIes maride. This material bm exph the fact that the US. bas been and xemaias an id&gical foufldn-head of racism. Ad its pffgenr Jaws-M, state and federal-& tbwgh hcompMy, this mdsm It is imporraat to mmgnk tbe inamphams with which scatutes mirror he reality of ~tidopprkon. 'Ihtls, while no wdd hw now provida for &ems* h United Stam Mththe Union of Swth Africa-& most a~mplwely&mid nation in the world day. For erample, while Neps dwmy per cent d Mti- more's population, they mpy two prcmt of is liviag s-, in Chi- rhc population densirp of tbe Negro section (90,000 per spare mile) is rbree thsmore tban thc maximum density for Mthy Iiving; while The A~cbit8cbtdFwsm (Jawary, 1945) in surveying a single Mock in Hadem remarked tbat, "At a romparab rate of concenratioa the atire Udted Sate8 4 be housed in half of New Yo& ciy." 'Laws alabkbg nnd mainmining ghettos wtrc important in their wigh -dm is, with dw appearance of imp~ialismBut oa# eL!3sw Ih. &, uud orb. -maud and 1- maol for u- ~~na~,.m~nam~faRb~mma*uueof rims &e Jnoalidatsd the krrus, but aot rhe gbctwk 4 Again, Iaws for jutg selcctim are not racially didhimmy in words, but in fact jury selection is notoriously didhhatory, so dmt a typid finding reported by Professor P8nline Kibh, ds: '5an estimaAed fifty counties [in Texas), wherein the Larin Amerian population ranges fmUwen to forty per wnt, persons of Mexian bnthave never beea known to be called for jurg semice, even in dx aial of civil suits" (hA-em h Texar, 1946). The whole pattern of disahiuamry edo-at of law does nor appear when nnt focuses only on the acdstatutes tbmlm. TI&, too, is beyand the scope of dds pamphlet, but rk fact is notorious md has been summod up well by Pmhr lbrmin Wlin in a paper endrled, "Race Prcjudk in the Adminisaatiam of Justice*' (Tbe AmBPiWHO lo& of Son'ology, Septemh, 1935) in this sentence: "Equality before the Iaw is a social fiction." A led lynching produces quite as dad a mrpc as the more orthodox type of Mdiey; ad while imocenr Willie McGee and the Men are enshrined forever in the great hof the world's massq heir wiws m widows and their cbildm are fatherla And sometimes rhe enforcement of rhe words of a nwdiscrimina- rory law serves to ;Illtminate the racist name of its admiaismrion. Thus, in a fgpical instance of police bestiality, which quite unypidy reached the US. Supreme Court (Brm Y. iWsirw, 1936) the Cow, in revcdng conviction of the Negrm involved, commented, 'me rack and the torture hbermay not be suhidfor he wit- ness stand." Such was the word of law, but the asmal mtus of the Negro people, and the habitual conduct of the law's minions appear in the undispuml recoxd of tbat case which showed that the police had hasted, in opn cour~of having tortured heNegroes until they confessed to a crime wbich available evidence demonstrated they d not have committed. And, of mse, no gunitive action wap begun or wen contemplated against the sadistic pgsm of law d order. And the words of law wilf nor reflect the whole cumulative weight of a racist society. For wmple, there is no law forbidding the in. habitana of American Samoa, in the Faciiic, from becoming bon or dentism. How, hen, explain this miid little sentcncc dealing with that po-ion of the benevolent US. in the Werls Al-: "Sin= there arc m practicing dm- or dent* dx eatire ppdntion is 5 under the medial are of the U.S. Navy"? The island has b~ hdd for wet 6hy years and contab thodof rdcots, yet not a shgb docwr OI dentist bis m law against a hamb&g a physician but th~~is, under Navy regulation, a segtqptecl eduationsl system in Samoa which does not include the &ge level and which concen- mites on dingEnglish and handid Yet wirh 9 the inadequacies of a study of the letter of the law itself, such an enamination does have considerabk due. In the fust place* hws are impomt cmaollers of social conduct and must be mdid if one is to shape sn dective social piopm. M~reover, if the very words of the laws are rack this cwrstitutes imhsable evi- dence of the oppdug nature of the skty haviag such laws. Aad, in view of rhe signed commirments and noble pretemions of US. imperialism, the &oft to ape the me cimacter of that system is aided by citing hpter and verse of its current racist legishum. HAVB hvery diligent and mute-," wme Wdter P. George, US Sew,-in violaring the spirit of . such staturn as tffonfd M the Nep ro belime Wfthe equal of rhe white nxu~~'Nostatu- toy Jaw, no organic law, no miliq hw," d dw =-Judge and rent Senator, #'sumthe law of d necessity" (Libw &ga- zhe, April 21,1928) . '*Racial n4tg"--the crrurcs have used nimilar laneThus the Pennsylvania Couq which upheld a Jim Crow dread Iaw then in &t in that state, in 1867 btthere was "a nadhww which was "dearly divine" and which f&e *a corruption of races," while the US. Suprcme Coua in uphotding, a generation later, a similar statute from Ld&m dchat '*legishion is powedw to 4;- CaterafiaIinstinc*i." ZZlough &me laws are nemaq and nand and divine and in- srincrive, just to be helpful to God and nature the ding dass decides to enact chem anyway and to punish thc extraordinary creatures of Gcd and aanue who, unaccountably, violare th.