Waterbury Democrat., 1901-08-01
NEGRO JURORS.
Not So Often Seen in Virginia as
 They Were.

lucy were
 The fact that. negroes have the right to serve on juries in Viginia appears to have been practically forgotten by the majority of courts in this state, and by the people generally. In the days of reconstruction, when the civil rights bill was one of the most talked of pieces of legislation enacted by the congress, 1t was a very general thing to see negroes on Virginia juries.
 The court officials were going slow. They did not want to give the federal authorities cause to say that any of the rights of the former slaves were be- ing denied them. In many cases negroes were put upon juries by judges who were out of sympathy with the great mass of white people of the state. This was especially true of the judges of the federal courts who, in every instance were men who had either been union men during the war or men who went over to the dom inant party after the war closed.
 The federal judges made it prac- ticc to have mixed juries until within a few years back. As, may well be imagined service on a federal jury was very distasteful to the, respecta- blc white men of Virginia. There are
 
 in the jury box with negroes who had been their property but a few years before, valued at so many hundreds of dollars each. There are said to be eases where ex-slaves have actually sat on the jury which tried their form-- CT masters Many white man has been tried in the federal courts of Virginia when the jury was composed l largely of negroes.
 But all this is thing of the past A negro juryman Is seldom seen in I Virginia these days. The fact is com mented upon that the courts in the city of Lynchburg some of them al any rate still have negro jurymen very frequently. In some of the coun ties of the state negroes are still per mitteG to perform jury service. It is said that in no instance are they al lowed to try white men.
 l Negroes have q horror of being tried by negroes. This fact has been ire quently commenced upon by judges and lawyers alike. The negro who ha6 to come up before negro jury is cer tain to be punished to the full exten1 | of the law. There are many instances of the most severe sentences being i'm l posed upon negroes by negroes who | sat i'll the jury, box. The old law o1 l an eye for an eye and tooth for $ I tooth receives full faith and credit among the negroes.
 The disappearance of the negroes from the jury boxes has not taker I place without something of q strug l gle. In the days of "Readjuster' judges negroes were summoned to serv, ;, on nearly every jury. The people were very tired of this practice, ant when the democratic party was re turned to power there was a strons demand to have the brother kept of of juries. Judges refused to allow him to be summoned.
 Earlier than that an attempt wa. made to compel judges to allow ne groes to serve on juries. A case wa. made up for this purpose, and aftel going through the various state courts went to the supreme court of tn, United States. That tribunal de cided that while negroes were eligibl, to jury service failure to allow then to serve was not an indictable offense Judges have the absolute power of de ciding whether negroes shall serve ol juries in their courts. And they hav, been deciding almost unanimously fo several years that he has no place il the box.
 In this connection 1t may be men tioned that an ex-slave was one of tn, grand jury which indicted Jefferson Davis, md had the president of tn, confederacy ever been tried there ii little reason to doubt that one or nor negroes would have been in the jur- box. This negro who was on the Da wis jury, by the way, recently died il | Washington county. Richmond Dis l patch.