Fayson v. Beard

• Decision Date: 07 September 1955
• Docket Number: No. 2920.,2920.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Texas
• Parties: B. T. FAYSON, Joseph P. Griffin, William Narcisse, Thomas Parker, Johnnie R. Wire, Earl White, Plaintiffs, v. Honorable Elmo BEARD, Mayor, City of Beaumont, Texas, Mrs. Willie J. Brockman, City Manager, City of Beaumont, The City of Beaumont, Jefferson County, Texas, a Corporation, Reese Martin, Commissioner of Parks, City of Beaumont, Henry Homberg, Manager, Tyrrell Park, Beaumont, Jefferson County, Texas, Defendants.

134 F. Supp. 379

B. T. FAYSON, Joseph P. Griffin, William Narcisse, Thomas Parker, Johnnie R. Wire, Earl White, Plaintiffs, v. Honorable Elmo BEARD, Mayor, City of Beaumont, Texas, Mrs. Willie J. Brockman, City Manager, City of Beaumont, The City of Beaumont, Jefferson County, Texas, a Corporation, Reese Martin, Commissioner of Parks, City of Beaumont, Henry Homberg, Manager, Tyrrell Park, Beaumont, Jefferson County, Texas, Defendants.

No. 2920.

United States District Court E. D. Texas, Beaumont Division.

September 7, 1955.

Theo R. Johns and Elmo R. Willard, III (of Johns & Willard), Beaumont, Tex., and U. Simpson Tate, Dallas, Tex., for plaintiffs.

George E. Murphy, City Atty., and John D. Rienstra (of King, Sharfstein & Rienstra), Beaumont, Tex., for defendants.

CECIL, District Judge.

Plaintiffs, Negro citizens and resident taxpayers of Beaumont, for themselves and others similarly situated, bring this suit against the defendants, claiming deprivation of their civil rights in violation of Section 1343(3), 28 U.S.C.A., for a declaratory judgment and injunction.

It is undisputed that the plaintiffs have been, upon numerous occasions, refused the right to use Central and Tyrrell Parks, both municipally owned and operated public recreational facilities in the City of Beaumont, and such refusal has been, and is solely, because of their race and color, pursuant to an alleged custom and usage of the City of Beaumont to restrict the use of such public facilities to members of the white race and to exclude Negroes therefrom.

They ask the Court to declare that such practice based upon custom and usage is unconstitutional and void for the reason that it denies the plaintiffs and members of the class they represent their privileges and immunities as citizens of the United States, their liberty, and property without due process of law, and the equal protection of the laws secured to them by Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and the rights secured to them by Title 42 U.S.C.A. §§ 1981 to 1983, and they specifically claim the Constitutional right to the free and unrestricted use and enjoyment of such public recreational facilities.

The defendants, with commendable candor, admit the right of the plaintiffs to use the facilities involved in this suit, but ask the Court to fashion a decree herein which will hedge about such right to use with "reasonable regulations", and which will permit such use by the plaintiffs only upon a segregated basis, as authorized by Article 1015b, Vernon's Civil Statutes of Texas. Relying upon Plessy v. Ferguson¹ and the opinions of Chief Judge Hutcheson of this Circuit in Beal v. Holcombe² and Holmes v. City of Atlanta,³ they say that, notwithstanding the Constitutional right of Negroes to use the public recreational facilities involved herein, this Court has the power to and should declare that such use can be made only upon reasonable conditions and upon a basis consistent with the principles of segregation.

With this contention I do not agree. I do not think that either Beal v. Holcombe or Holmes v. City of Atlanta are dispositive of the problem we face here. Beal v. Holcombe was decided on December 20, 1951, prior to the decisions in the School Segregation Cases,⁴ and the impact of such cases and others upon the doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson. In Holmes v. City of Atlanta, decided June 17, 1955, plaintiffs merely sought a judgment declaring the policy, practice, custom, and usage of the defendants of denying plaintiffs, and other Negro citizens similarly situated, permission and admission to play the game of golf upon the Bobby Jones Golf Course, or any other public golf course maintained by the defendants, solely because of the race and color of the plaintiffs, while at the same time extending and granting to white persons the right and privilege of admission to play the game of golf upon the said Bobby Jones Golf Course and other golf courses, would be a denial of the equal protection of the laws to plaintiffs, as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. Judge Sloan of the Northern District of Georgia held such denial was violative of the Constitutional rights of the plaintiffs and declared that they had the right to play upon such golf courses on a segregated basis. This judgment was affirmed by Chief Judge Hutcheson, speaking for the 5th Circuit 223 F.2d 95, saying that the Court was "of the clear opinion, that the judgment in terms accorded plaintiffs all the relief that they asked for * * *."

The judgment in the Holmes case did afford the plaintiffs all the relief they sought, but in the case at bar to merely adjudicate the right of the plaintiffs to use the public recreational facilities herein involved (which right is conceded by the defendants) would not give plaintiffs all the relief they seek, for here they claim the Constitutional right of free and unrestricted use and enjoyment of such public recreational facilities and ask this Court so to declare.

In 1896 the Supreme Court of the United States decided Plessy v. Ferguson and laid down the "separate but equal facilities" doctrine in the field of transportation. In the School Segregation Cases, the Supreme Court of the United States specifically overruled Plessy v. Ferguson insofar as it applied to the field of public education, and placed great emphasis upon the intangible (psychological) factors involved in segregation in public schools. Mr. Justice Warren in one of the School Segregation Cases (Brown v. Board of Education) clearly expressed the opinion of the Court that equality in tangibles was not a complete answer to the problems of segregation in public schools, for notwithstanding such equality, there still existed an unconstitutional discrimination created by segregation because of the impact upon segregated students of intangible or psychological factors. In the other School Segregation Case, Bolling v. Sharpe, it was said in 74 S.Ct. at page 694: "Classifications based solely upon race must be scrutinized with particular care, since they are contrary to our traditions and hence Constitutionally suspect", and in Korematsu v. United States,⁵ cited in Bolling v. Sharpe, the Court said: "All legal restrictions which curtail the civil rights of a single racial group are immediately suspect. That is not to say that all such restrictions are unconstitutional. It is to say that courts must subject them to the most rigid scrutiny. Pressing public necessity may sometimes justify the existence of such restrictions; racial antagonism never can."

After the decision in the School Segregation Cases, on May 24, 1954, the Supreme Court entered an order in Muir v. Louisville Theatrical Park Association⁶ (a case involving the equality of the recreational facilities afforded Negroes and white persons by the City of Louisville, and the exclusion of Negroes from an amphitheater for theatrical productions located in a city park reserved for white people), in which the Court vacated the judgment of the lower Court and remanded the same for further consideration in the light of the School Segregation Cases and conditions that now prevail. Even before this order of May 24, 1954, and before the School Segregation Cases were decided, the Supreme Court in Rice v. Arnold,⁷ where the City of Miami operated a public golf course, permitting Negroes to play one day a week and whites to play on the other days, entered an order vacating the judgment and remanded the case to the Supreme Court of Florida for reconsideration in the light of Sweatt v. Painter⁸ and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents.⁹

What, then, is the current status of Plessy v. Ferguson in the light of the School Segregation Cases and in light of the Supreme Court action upon certiorari in Muir v. Louisville and its action upon certiorari in Rice v. Arnold in a case involving the use of public recreational facilities? It is true that the School Segregation Cases expressly overrule Plessy v. Ferguson only insofar as it applied to the field of public education, but it seems clear to me that its action on certiorari in the Muir case, and in Rice v. Arnold, are strong indications that Plessy v. Ferguson will not, and should not, be held to be controlling in the public recreational field. If the provisions for equal tangible facilities in the field of public education do not eliminate intangible or psychological discrimination in the field of public education, how can it reasonably be said that equality in tangibles in the field of public recreation eliminates psychological factors so clearly involved in segregation based upon the color of a man's skin?

It can, of course, be argued that the intangibles are less effective in the public recreational field than in the field of public education, but that is to say that a little discrimination is to be condoned, but a great deal should be condemned. If the reasoning in the School Segregation Cases concerning psychological factors is sound as it relates to public education, then it must necessarily apply to the field of public recreation.

A case which is most persuasive upon me, and which convinces me Plessy v. Ferguson is no longer the law in either the field of...