Heretofore only legislative enactments, State and Federal, as to the civil rights of Negroes have been considered. It is well now to turn to the courts to see how the laws have been interpreted as regards various public places.
Only six States expressly forbid race distinctions in hotels. But it may be assumed that the sixteen States which mention inns mean to include hotels.
In 1876 a Negro minister applied for a room at a Philadelphia hotel and was refused accommodation, though one of the guests offered to share his room with him. At that time there was no law in Pennsylvania requiring hotel-keepers to receive colored persons; but the Federal court[262] held that the clerk might be liable under the Federal Civil Rights Bill of 1875.
In 1898 one Russ applied for a license to open a hotel in Pennsylvania. In granting it, the court[263] took the occasion to express its view on race distinctions in the following words: “A sober, respectable, and well-behaved colored man or woman is entitled under the law of Pennsylvania to be received in any house of entertainment and be treated in the same manner as any other guest. It is time that race discrimination ceased in this State.... No one objects any longer to his [the Negro’s] presence in a public conveyance or place of entertainment; thus far the prejudice of race has been overcome; it is quite certain that the objection to his presence in a hotel or restaurant will also pass away as soon as his right under the law to be there is recognized in fact as it now is by the letter of the statute.... It would be vain to deny that some race prejudice still exists among us, but the law does not countenance it, and good citizens should strive to rise above it. We trust the effort will be made and that toleration and moderation will mark the conduct of both races.”
In 1896 the members of the Indiana University football team went to the Nutt House in Crawfordsville, Indiana, for accommodation. One of the members of the team was a Negro. The clerk refused to take the Negro in with the rest of the guests, but offered to let him eat at the “ordinary.” The Negro, being a minor, brought suit through his next friend, and the Indiana[264] court held that the Civil Rights Bill of the State could not be satisfied by separate accommodations.