Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1930-01-25
DEATH KNELL OF RESIDENTIAL Seq
REGATION HAS SOUNDED AND THE
sg@
-OBSEOUIES WILL TAKE PLACE IN
u. S, SUPREME COURT.

Although the United States Cir
cult Court of Appeals and the
United States District Court have
sounded the death knell of Rich
mond's racial segregation ordinance,
one of the city's attorneys has told
the writer that ne will certainly car
nv the case on to the Supreme Court
at Washington, D. c. We will have
no objection to attending the obse-
ouies and interment of that ordi-
nance at Washington, d. c., as we
have q black suit of clothes and a
band of crepe to put around our
hat. The writer has been to Wash
ington, D. c., before the Supreme
Court of the United States and wit
messed the interment OF Richmond
first segregation ordinance. BY this
| mean to say in all seriousness that
the Supreme Court OF the United
States at Washington will close Its
doors on the city Of Richmond's pc
tition.
/ am sure that the City Council
in ordaining the ordinance was dom
mated by a vociferouS minority OF
our citizens, as three of their num-
Der have told the writer before, and
since they voted, that they believed
the ordinance unconstitutional, but
in voting for it were carrying out
the wishes of their constituents. A
survey of the better sentiment of the
larger portion of Richmond's citizens
has proven to the writer's satisfae-
ton that these latter citizens did
not want the ordinance passed.
The Committee on Ordinance was
informed by the writer before the
ordinance was passed That by a SIM
ple contract of not over ten words
a restriction, such as is now found
in a large number of deeds of bar
gain and sale, signed by all property
owners on a block, would limit oc-
cupancy to either the white or col
ored race, within the block, for q
period of twenty-one years, and that
the United States Supreme Court had
held such a limitation valid. 1t IS
now, and has therefore always been,
within the power Of either race to
exclude the other from occupancy
of a residence, if disposed so to do,
within any block in the city of Rich
mond. 1t was, therefore, an unfor-
tunate thing for the City Council to
pass the ordinance and cause an ex-
penditure of money to attack it and
have it declared invalid.
j. B. Deans has had the honor,
distinction, and the courage TO have
had the enforcement of the ordi-
nance stayed by Federal injunction:
The writer has never entertained
any doubG that the judges of our
local courts, had they been appealed
to. would have followed the same
course as the Federal courts have
done in declaring the ordinance un-
constitutional, but on appeal by the
city to the Supreme Court OF Vlr-
ginia, and from that court to the
Supreme Court OF the United States
at Washington, D. c. several years
would pass by before final decision
of the latter court was had. 1t took
six years by that course-trom 1911
to 1917-to have that august tribu-
nal ri Washington declare Rich
MOI racial segregation ordinance
passed in the year 1911 mconstltu-
tional, in the case of Marley VS..
Buchanan.
Hence by appealing to the Fed
eral courts, with.n less time than one
year, J. 3. Deans will have final
decision from the Supreme Court OF
the United States at Washington,
D. c., that the city's ordinance is in
contravention to the sixteenth
amendment of the United States
Constitution and therefore worth
less. In order that this may be ac-
complished, the lawyers of ]. B.
Deans must oppose the granting of
d writ of certiorari by the Supreme
Court of the United States to the
city of Richmond on its appeal to
that tribunal for the writ, which writ
is in plain language a command to
the United States Circuit Court of
to send all papers in the
case up to that high and honorable
court to its decision.