On January 12, 1904, Representative Carl Day, a Democrat
from Breathitt County, introduced House Bill No. 25, entitled "an
Act to Prohibit white and colored persons from attending the same
school." The penalty for any person or corporation convicted
of violation was $1000 ( Kentucky Journal of House of Representatives
201, 1904, p. 523). House Committee on Education No. 1 received
the Bill on referral and set its hearing. Berea College President
William G. Frost, accompanied by Mrs. Eleanor Frost and others of
the faculty, traveled to Frankfort to remonstrate against the bill.
However, the college delegation was not permitted to appear until
the Committee had met in closed session with a small group of Berea
citizens who favored the bill (Louisville Courier Journal, February
2, 1904). Speaking for the group was the president of Berea’s Democrat
Club, J.M. Early, a white merchant. In addition to those Bereans,
other advocates were State Superintendent of Education Harry McChesney
and Representative Carl Day, along with his fellow Breathitt county
democrats, judges D.B. Redwine and James Hargis (Tapp and Klotter,
1977, pp 396-400, 418-425). Early told the committee that he represented
the town’s business interests who thought a separation of the races
of Berea College would "be to the best interests of the community
as well as of the State" (Louisville Courier Journal,
February 2, 1904, p.1). McChesney emphasized how the bill would force
this private college into compliance with Kentucky’s Constitution
and statues which already prohibited racial coeducation in public
schools. Moreover, he noted that the question of equality had become
acute due to President Roosevelt’s invitation to Booker T. Washington,
a Negro, to have lunch at the White House. Thus, "if the Berea
ideas were carried out to logical conclusion, there would be social
equality of the races in Kentucky" (lbid). Day told the committee
that he had introduced a bill for the purpose of "preventing
the contamination of the white children of Kentucky" (lbid).
Redwine and Hargis also lent their support to the measure claiming
that the races could be educated separately. After the bill’s
advocates spoke, the committee opened their session to receive Berea
College’s delegation who presented an historical overview of the College,
striving to show how racial coeducation had been maintained for four
decades without harm to white or black students. Later upon hearing
about the allegations made against the College by the advocate group,
Frost and other Day Law opponents lobbied legislators, appealing to
moderates, Republican and Democrat, to use their private influences
to defeat the bill’s passage. Day Law supporters, adept at rousing
anti-social equality, anti-Negro sentiments, organized a mass public
meeting at the Richmond Courthouse. They argued that citizens should
support the bill because Berea was teaching African-Americans to be
the social equals of the white man and woman (J.A. Sullivan’s speech,
WGF Papers). Speaking in defense of Berea College, James A.
White, a black alumnus, lawyer and teacher in Richmond, emphasized
that the advantage of Berea College was not in social equality but
rather in being educated together because whites and blacks then become
accustomed to each other as fellow human beings ( James A. White’s
speech, WFG Papers). Prior to the House’s vote, endorsements
from the Richmond meeting were read into the record. Day’s bill passed
the House and later, the Senate (Kentucky Journal of the Senate,
March 11, 1904, pp 1050- 1053). The legislature thus enacted a law
to prohibit racial coeducation in a private school even through racial
coeducation had never caused the social evils that the Day Law was
purported to rectify. Although Berea College appealed their case to
the United States Supreme Court, the Court upheld the law as constitutional
and it remained in effect until amended by the legislature in 1950.
Bibliography
Jacqueline J. Burnside, "Philanthropists and
Politicians: a Sociological Profile of Berea College, 1855-1908,"
Ph.D. dissertation Yale University, 1988.
William
G. Frost papers (WGF), Berea College Archives, Berea, Kentucky.
Hambleton Tapp and James Klotter, Kentucky Decades
of Discord, 1865-1900 ( Frankfort, Kentucky,
1977).
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