FAYETTEVILLE,
Ark. — At the beginning of the 20th century the future looked bright for most
of the citizens of America. Unfortunately for blacks, the difficult situation
they faced had been made possible by the rulings of the American judiciary. Led
by the U.S. Supreme Court, the judiciary did much to encourage and little to
prevent oppression of blacks by the majority under the banner of white
supremacy.
At this same time
three southern federal judges demonstrated tremendous judicial courage trying
to protect the civil rights of African Americans. A Rift in the Clouds: Race and the Southern Federal Judiciary,
1900-1910, by Brent J. Aucoin, published by the University of Arkansas
Press (cloth, $34.95), chronicles the efforts of Jacob Treiber of Arkansas,
Emory Speer of Georgia, and Thomas Goode Jones of Alabama when few in the
American legal community were willing to do so. Their decisions all challenged
the Supreme Court's reading of the Reconstruction amendments that were passed
in an attempt to make disfranchised and exploited African Americans equal
citizens of the United States.
These unpopular
white southerners, two of whom had served in the Confederate Army and had
themselves helped to bring Reconstruction to an end in their states, asserted
that the amendments not only established black equality, but authorized the
government to protect blacks. Although their rulings won few immediate gains
for blacks and were overturned by the Supreme Court, their legal arguments
would be resurrected and meet with greater success over half a century later
during the civil rights movement.
Christopher
Waldrep of San Francisco State University says, “Aucoin provides excellent
information on three southerners generally overlooked by history. They need to
be considered by all historians, those interested in the South as well as those
looking at the law and the Constitution and those concerned with how reform
happens in America."
And Alfred L.
Brophy of the University of Alabama Law School says, "Aucoin’s book
contributes to our understanding of how courageous, visionary people at the
local level interpreted the Constitution. It's a part of popular
constitutionalism. It’s part of the diversity of opinions in legal thought
which held promise even if it did not develop as we would have liked.”
Brent J. Aucoin
is an associate professor of history at Southeastern College at Wake Forest.