State v. Board of Directors of School Dist. No. 16

• Decision Date: 05 June 1922
• Docket Number: (No. 42.)
• Citation: 242 S.W. 545
• Parties: STATE ex rel. BLACK v. BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF SCHOOL DIST. NO. 16, MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 545

242 S.W. 545

STATE ex rel. BLACK v. BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF SCHOOL DIST. NO. 16, MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

(No. 42.)

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

June 5, 1922.

Rehearing Denied July 10, 1922.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Montgomery County; Scott Wood, Judge.

Mandamus by the State, on the relation of Jefferson Black, against the Board of Directors of School District No. 16, Montgomery County. From judgment for defendant, relator appeals. Affirmed.

R. G. Davies, of Hot Springs, for appellant.

Gibson Witt and Earl Witt, both of Hot Springs, for appellee.

HUMPHREYS, J.

Appellant, in his own behalf, and as father nad next friend of his three children, instituted an action for mandamus in the Montgomery circuit court to compel appellees, directors of school district No. 16 in said county, to permit his children to attend the school provided for white children in said district. It was alleged in the petition that the relator and his children are members of the white or Caucasian race, and that his wife, the mother of said children, is also, with a trace of Cherokee Indian blood in her veins; that said board excluded the children from attendance upon the white school on the ground that they had negro blood in their veins. The case was submitted on the issue tendered by the complaint, and the testimony adduced by each party, which resulted in a finding that the evidence tended to show a trace of negro blood in said children, and a declaration of law that, for this reason, the school directors had authority to exclude said children from attendance upon the white school in the district, the exercise of which could not be controlled by mandamus, it not appearing that they arbitrarily exercised such power.

Appellant's first insistence for reversal is that there was no substantial evidence in the record to support the court's finding of fact. A large number of witnesses testified pro and con in the case, and, should an attempt be made to set out the testimony of each, it would extend this opinion to great length. Suffice it to say that the witnesses introduced in behalf of the appellant testified, in substance, that the children and their ancestors belonged to the white race; that Ophelia James, the grandmother of the children, and her reputed mother, Maria Gocio (née Chairs), had a small strain of Cherokee Indian blood in their veins, but no African or negro blood; that there was some doubt as to whether Ophelia James was a daughter or an adopted child of Maria Gocio; and that the witnesses on behalf of appellee testified that said children belonged to the negro or African race; that Ophelia James, their grandmother, and Maria Gocio, their great-grandmother, were negro women. In view of this latter testimony it cannot be said that there was no substantial evidence tending to show a trace of negro blood in the veins of said children.

Appellant's next insistence for reversal is that the court erred in its third and fourth declarations of law, which are as follows:

"The directors are given the right and authority to determine whether or not the children in their district are white, or whether or not they have negro blood in them, and it is their duty to assign them to the proper school and to provide a school for each class of children without discrimination."

"The action of the directors cannot be controlled by mandamus because the evidence fails to show that they acted arbitrarily and without evidence to support their action in determining that petitioner's children have negro blood."

Educational interests and school affairs in each school district in this state are placed by statute under the control and management of the school directors, and they are required by the law to maintain separate schools for white and colored children and youth. Sections 8915 and 8916, Crawford & Moses' Digest. In...