brought an action against the white man to recover damages to the extent of the jury fees. The court held[57] that, while color was not a test of one's fitness to be a juror, a written objection to serve on a jury with a Negro is no ground for an action for damages by a colored man.
The latest case of race distinction in juries comes from Oklahoma. There were four Negroes on a jury, and for that reason the judge discharged the jury. He said that the State had separate cars, separate schools, and separate tables for Negroes and whites, and "he would not insult white men by making them serve on a jury with Negroes." The case is so recent as to be reported, as yet, only in the newspapers.[58]
The constitutional right of the Negro to serve on a jury or to be tried before a jury composed, in whole or in part, of Negroes, is well expressed in a recent Texas case[59] as follows: "It is not a question as to the right of a Negro, or any number of Negroes, to sit on a grand jury, that the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United State was intended to provide for; but it was intended, where a Negro was on trial, to prevent discrimination against the Negro race in the formation of the grand jury, which presented the indictment, and only in case Negroes are intentionally excluded from the grand jury is he denied the equal protection of the laws. It was never intended by the Fourteenth Amendment to guaranty a Negro defendant a full Negro grand jury, or to guaranty to him any particular number of grand jurors, but it was intended to prevent intentional exclusion from the grand jury."
