William O. Douglas Quotes
Segregation is a very simple constitutional question for me: No classification on the basis of race can be made.
Quoted in the Court’s notes of the meeting
William O. Douglas, 1898-1980, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Chairman, Security & Exchange Commission, Legal Conference of the Justices on the Issue of School Segregation, 1952
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This was the infamous opinion whereby the Supreme Court upheld the “separate but equal” doctrine thereby preserving racial discrimination until the reversal over 50 years later. See the sole dissent of Justice John Marshall Harlan whose views were those that eventually prevailed although at the time all the other justices voted with the majority. See {583706} and {583703}.
The power structure of England and the English administrators of South Africa were strong advocates of racial equality at the beginning of the 19th century. They insisted on equal administration of law. However the Boer white population could think of nothing more absurd. In a sense the Boers were much like the Southern Whites at the same time. The South African government however could not enforce its equality policies in the rural area – the majority of South Africa at the time. When democracy and self rule came to South Africa, the racially moderating force of the English was minimized and the majority of South Africans wanted a racially segregated society. Apartheid resulted.
Douglas was appealing to the racist crowd in Galesburg by showing that Lincoln actually believed in Racial Equality. This technique was used be racist politicians—since then and in a few places of the South even into the 21st century.
Southerners and some others wanted to discriminate and fought civil rights legislation. The excuse they gave for opposition was that the Federal Government was usurping the power of the states to determine what civil rights people of the state would have. Shellabarger made it clear that the civil rights bill would not require ANY rights to be given. It just required that if the states granted rights, they could not discriminate by race as to those rights. But the states were free to decide which rights all citizens of the state would have. See {623473} .
In the 1930s African Americans who traveled were subject to countless humiliations whenever the sought hotels, rooming houses, restaurants and other accommodations. Gas stations would not allow them to use bathrooms and they were reduced to using open fields. Traveling and vacationing was, for Blacks, humiliating. Wikipedia: “Green reviewed hotels and restaurants that did business with African Americans during the time of Jim Crow laws and racial segregation in the United States. He printed 15,000 copies each year. In the 1930s, Green began his work by compiling data on stores in the New York area that accepted black travelers, and published his first guide in 1936. Similar guides had been published for Jewish travelers, who sometimes faced discrimination. Green's guide was so popular that he immediately began to expand its coverage the next year to other US destinations, adding hotel and restaurants as well.”
William Orville Douglas was an American jurist and politician who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Nominated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Douglas was confirmed at the age of 40, one of the youngest justices appointed to the court. His term, lasting 36 years and 211 days (1939–75), is the longest in the history of the Supreme Court. In 1975, Time magazine called Douglas "the most doctrinaire and committed civil libertarian ever to sit on the court."
