Opinion of DOUGLAS, J. 378 U.S. tried to reason with these leaders, told them that as long as my customers were the deciding who they want to eat with, I'm at the mercy of my customers. I'm trying to do what they want. If they fail to come in, these people are not paying my expenses, and my bills. They didn't want to go back and talk to my colored employees because every one of them are in sympathy with me and that is we're in sympathy with what their objectives are, with what they are trying to abolish . . . ." (Italics added.) Here, as in most of the sit-in cases before us, the refusal of service did not reflect "personal prejudices" but business reasons.1 Were we today to hold that segregated restaurants, whose racial policies were enforced by a State, violated the Equal Protection Clause, all restaurants would be on an equal footing and the reasons given in this and most of the companion cases for refusing service to Negroes would evaporate. Moreover, when corporate restaurateurs are involved, whose "personal prejudices" are being protected? The stockholders'? The directors'? The officers'? The managers'? The truth is, I think, that the corporate interest is in making morey, not in protecting "personal prejudices." III. I leave those questions to another part of this opinion " and turn to an even more basic issue. I now assume that the issue is the one stated by those who would affirm. The case in that posture deals with a relic of slavery-an institution that has cast a long shadow across the land, resulting today in a second-class citizenship in this area of public accommodations. 1 See Appendix II. 2 See Appendix I. 226 Opinion of Douglas, J. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments had "one pervading purpose . . . we mean the freedom of the slave race, the security and firm establishment of that freedom, and the protection of the newlymade freeman and citizen from the oppressions of those who had formerly exercised unlimited dominion over him." Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 71. Prior to those Amendments, Negroes were segregated and disallowed the use of public accommodations except and unless the owners chose to serve them. To affirm these judgments would remit those Negroes to their old status and allow the States to keep them there by the force of their police and their judiciary. We deal here with public accommodations-with the right of people to eat and travel as they like and to use facilities whose only claim to existence is serving the public. What the President said in his State of the Union Message on January 8, 1964, states the constitutional right of all Americans, regardless of race or color, to be treated equally by all branches of government: "Today Americans of all races stand side by side in Berlin and in Vietnam. "They died side by side in Korea. "Surely they can work and eat and travel side by side in their own country." The Black Codes were a substitute for slavery; segregation was a substitute for the Black Codes; 3 3 For accounts of the Black Codes see Fleming, The Sequel of Appomattox (1919), pp. 94-98; Sen. Ex. Doc. No. 6, 39th Cong., 2d Sess.; I Oberholtzer, A History of the United States Since the Civil War (1917), pp. 126–127, 136-137, 175. They are summarized as follows by Morison and Commager, The Growth of the American Republic (1950), pp. 17-18: "These black codes provided for relationships between the whites and the blacks in harmony with realities—as the whites understood them-rather than with abstract theory. They conferred upon the Opinion of DOUGLAS, J. 378 U.S. the discrimination in these sit-in cases is a relic of slavery.* The Fourteenth Amendment says "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or freedmen fairly extensive privileges, gave them the essential rights of citizens to contract, sue and be sued, own and inherit property, and testify in court, and made some provision for education. In no instance were the freedmen accorded the vote or made eligible for juries, and for the most part they were not permitted to testify against white men. Because of their alleged aversion to steady work they were required to have some steady occupation, and subjected to special penalties for violation of labor contracts. Vagrancy and apprenticeship laws were especially harsh, and lent themselves readily to the establishment of a system of peonage. The penal codes provided harsher and more arbitrary punishments for blacks than for whites, and some states permitted individual masters to administer corporal punishment to 'refractory servants.' Negroes were not allowed to bear arms or to appear in all public places, and there were special laws governing the domestic relations of the blacks. In some states laws closing to the freedmen every occupation save domestic and agricultural service, betrayed a poor-white jealousy of the Negro artisan. Most codes, however, included special provisions to protect the Negro from undue exploitation and swindling. On the whole the black codes corresponded fairly closely to the essential fact that nearly four million ex-slaves needed special attention until they were ready to mingle in free society on more equal terms. But in such states as South Carolina and Mississippi there was clearly evident a desire to keep the freedmen in a permanent position of tutelage, if not of peonage." Other "relics of slavery" have recently come before this Court. In Hamilton v. Alabama, 376 U. S. 650, we reversed a judgment of contempt imposed on a Negro witness under these circumstances: "Cross examination by Solicitor Rayburn: "Q. What is your name, please? "A. Miss Mary Hamilton. "Q. Mary, I believe-you were arrested-who were you arrested by? "A. My name is Miss Hamilton. Please address me correctly. "Q. Who were you arrested by, Mary? "A. I will not answer a question [Footnote 4 continued on p. 249] 226 Opinion of Douglas, J. immunities of citizens of the United States." The Fourteenth Amendment also makes every person who is born here a citizen; and there is no second or third or fourth class of citizenship. See, e. g., Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U. S. 163, 168. We deal here with incidents of national citizenship. As stated in the Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall, 36, 71– 72, concerning the federal rights resting on the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments: "... no one can fail to be impressed with the one pervading purpose found in them all, lying at the foundation of each, and without which none of them would have been even suggested; we mean the freedom of the slave race, the security and firm establishment of that freedom, and the protection of the newly-made freeman and citizen from the oppressions of those who had formerly exercised unlimited dominion over him. It is true that only the fifteenth amendment, in terms, mentions the negro by speaking of his color and his slavery. But it is just as true that each of the other articles was addressed to the grievances of that race, and designed to remedy them as the fifteenth." "By Attorney Amaker: The witness's name is Miss Hamilton. "A. —your question until I am addressed correctly. "The Court: ALswer the question. "The Witness: I will not answer them unless I am addressed correctly. "The Court: You are in contempt of court "Attorney Conley: Your Honor-your Honor "The Court: You are in contempt of this court, and you are sentenced to five days in jail and a fifty dollar fine." Additional relics of slavery are mirrored in recent decisions: Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (segregated schools); Johnson v. Virginia, 373 U. S. 61 (segregated courtroom); Peterson v. Greenville, 373 U. S. 244, and Lombard v. Louisiana, 373 U. S. 267 (segregated restaurants); Wright v. Georgia, 373 U. S. 284, and Watson v. Memphis, 373 U. S. 526 (segregated public parks). Opinion of Douglas, J. 378 U.S. When we deal with Amendments touching the liberation of people from slavery, we deal with rights "which owe their existence to the Federal government, its National character, its Constitution, or its laws." Id., at 79. We are not in the field of exclusive municipal regulation where federal intrusion might "fetter and degrade the State governments by subjecting them to the control of Congress, in the exercise of powers heretofore universally conceded to them of the most ordinary and fundamental character." Id., at 78. There has been a judicial reluctance to expand the content of national citizenship beyond racial discrimination, voting rights, the right to travel, safe custody in the hands of a federal marshal, diplomatic protection abroad, and the like. See Slaughter-House Cases, supra; Logan v. United States, 144 U. S. 263; United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299; Edwards v. California, 314 U. S. 160; Kent v. Dulles, 357 U. S. 116. The reluctance has been due to a fear of creating constitutional refuges for a host of rights historically subject to regulation. See Madden v. Kentucky, 309 U. S. 83, overruling Colgate v. Harvey, 296 U. S. 404. But those fears have no relevance here, where we deal with Amendments whose dominant purpose was to guarantee the freedom of the slave race and establish a regime where national citizenship has only one class. The manner in which the right to be served in places of public accommodations is an incident of national citizenship and of the right to travel is summarized in H. R. Rep. No. 914, Pt. 2, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 7-8: "An official of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, testified before the Senate Commerce Subcommittee as follows: "For millions of Americans this is vacation time. Swarms of families load their automobiles and trek across country. I invite the members of this com |