criminal justice in the south | hate crimes | police brutality | sentencing | judicial | politics
posted 12/7/06 by Philadelphia University Honors History 1, Fall 2006
CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN THE SOUTH
Even after being freed from slavery, African Americans have often been the victims of great injustice. Our society today
attempts to create an environment where justice prevails to all people, regardless of color, but has it succeeded? Hate groups
such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) along with the very people we are supposed to trust: the police, judges, juries and all those
involved in the judicial system of the U.S. continue to target African Americans. Our society has made incredible progress to
which the following documents attest, but they also reveal that we still have a long way to go to ensure justice for all.
HATE CRIMES
The Ku Klux Klan was organized in 1867 in the South as a reaction to the newly drafted State constitutions in the South
following the Civil War. This group used terrorism against the freedmen and those who supported them by using tactics such as
intimidation, rallies, and lynching. Throughout the years, lynching has been used as a form of ‘justice’ for the KKK and it has
also served as a warning for other targets.
Between 1868 and 1870, the Klan reached its peak of violence in Georgia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina.
However, in 1869, the Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest ordered the Klan to disband due to the excessive violence
that accumulated over the years. That did not stop the Klan from activity in local areas- that is, until Congress passed the
Enforcement Act (1870) and Ku Klux Act (1871) to hinder KKK activities.
Afterwards, the Klan activities were non-existent because their main goal had been largely accomplished- white supremacy was
restored in the South. It wasn’t until 1915 that the Klan was reborn but this time their goal was modified for modern times. The
new Klan was formed in response to the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, increased immigration that changed the ethnicity of
American society, as well as the nostalgia for the old South.
Membership exceeded 4,000,000 on a national level in the 1920s but that did not last long because of the Great
Depression. Violence decreased then resurged again during the civil rights era in the 1960s. As the years went on, the Klan’s
membership and level of violence simmered until it got to the point where membership fell as low as a few thousand and
dispersed into smaller hate groups. While the hate groups were small, they still promoted and executed hate crimes as well as
spread subliminal messages to persuade others to become members.
For more information and statistics, visit:
http://www.answers.com/topic/ku-klux-klan
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aaworld/reference/articles/ku_klux_klan.html
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2004/hctable11.htm
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hatecm.htm
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2004/hc14southcarolina.htm
POLICE BRUTALITY
Police brutality has been around since the 1800s when police departments were first formed. Though it can be found in
many different forms, it still has the same negative outcome. During Reconstruction, the KKK was a terrorist group that had a
strong influence despite the authority of and sometimes in collaboration with the police. It was much easier for law enforcement
to be racist and brutal during that time because there were not many laws against it. As the years went on, many amendments
were passed to ensure our safety and freedoms against police brutality, regardless of our race or gender. Though we have made
great advances in correcting this problem, it will never go away.
Police brutality was at its worst during Reconstruction. Once the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, injustices
seemed to only get worse. Freedmen were targeted and treated unjustly. Police were charging them with crimes they never
committed or making the punishment far worse than fit the crime. However, during Reconstruction the government passed two
more amendments. The Fourteenth (1868) and Fifteenth (1870) Amendments helped protect the freedmen’s rights. The 14th
Amendment stated that “No state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny any
person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”. This helped government officials realize that they eventually had
to start treating African Americans at least fairly, if they were not willing to treat them equally. The 15th Amendment prohibited
governments from using color, race, or previous slave status as a qualification for voting. This was a huge step taken by the
government because states were using Black Codes and scare tactics to keep the freedmen from voting, just because they feared
the impact of the freedmen’s new rights. Though these Amendments all came early on in Reconstruction, it took some time for
them to finally be established and followed. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the law that solidified equal rights of African
Americans.
It is obvious that the freedmen were discriminated against and terrorized because their former owners were afraid of
what they might do. This fear turned to anger and terror because that was the only way they knew how to get what they wanted.
The whites knew that the freedmen were vulnerable in their newly “freed state” and they took advantage of that. By no means
should that have been tolerated, and it is encouraging to see that, though slowly, steps were taken to stop these terrible, childish
acts.
For more information on Police Brutality and the Laws that eventually addressed it, these sites will be helpful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Constitution#Bill_of_Rights
http://www.pbs.org/blackpress/film/fulltranscript.html
SENTENCING
The obvious methods of injustice carried out against African Americans were lynching or police brutality. Those
methods are no longer accepted in the public eye but the injustice remains entrenched in the justice system, especially in regards
to sentencing. No longer is it common to lynch a man, but the statistics shown in the following documents show that African
Americans are given the death penalty in a disproportionate ratio than whites.
source: http://www.csdp.org/edcs/page30.htm
The racism and violence has found its way into the U.S. courts. Not only are blacks more likely to get the death penalty
across the board, but are especially likely to receive the death penalty if the he or she is accused of killing a white victim. In
South Carolina especially, it is evident that lynching has been replaced with capital punishment and harsher sentencing.
For more information, visit:
www.ncadp.org
http://www.counterpunch.org/brinker0813.html
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/15967/
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/newsanddev.php?scid=5
http://www.sciway.net/afam/reconstruction/lynching.html
JUDICIAL
The judicial branch of the South Carolina government has been closed to diversity and public majority for most of the
century. It was an all white majority for many years due to the process of electing new judges. In the past judges were selected
by a committee, so many of the judges elected had recently been on the committee. New constitutional amendments have
changed that process, so in future years there will be more diversity on the South Carolina bench.
Diversity of the Bench
Number of:
Supreme
Court
Judgeships
Female judges
African American judges
Hispanic judges
Native American judges
Asian/Pacific Island judges
Court of
Appeals
5
1
0
0
0
0
Circuit
Court
9
2
1
0
0
0
46
4
5
0
0
0
Influential African-American Judges from 1964 through Today
Name
Willie T. Smith, Jr.
Harold R. Boulware
Year starting on
bench
1964
Matthew Perry
To learn more:
http://www.scafricanamericanhistory.com/currenthonoree.asp?month=5&year=1999
1969- Associate http://www.scafricanamericanhistory.com/currenthonoree.asp?month=11&year=1993
Judge for the
Columbia
Municipal Court
http://www.scafricanamericanhistory.com/currenthonoree.asp?month=11&year=1990
1975 Military
Court of Appeals
1981- First African http://www.scafricanamericanhistory.com/currenthonoree.asp?month=2&year=2001
American to serve
as a municipal
court judge
http://www.scafricanamericanhistory.com/currenthonoree.asp?month=1&year=2003
Jasper Cureton
1983 South
Carolina Court of
Appeals
Robert N. Jenkins, Sr.
1996 family court http://www.scafricanamericanhistory.com/currenthonoree.asp?month=5&year=2001
judge
Source: http://www.ajs.org/js/SC_diversity.htm
Merf F. Code
As shown from the data, South Carolina has made some progress in diversity in the judicial system. Throughout the
years African American South Carolinians have worked to make a difference in the judicial system but they have to stay focused
or it will be a white male majority, as it is currently.
SHAPE \* MERGEFORMAT
Caption: The five Supreme Court judges currently on the bench in South Carolina; http://www.sccourts.org/supreme/index.cfm)
For more information, visit:
http://www.ajs.org/js/SC_diversity.htm
http://www.sccourts.org/supreme/index.cfm
POLITICS
When looking past the sometimes biased judges and juries, as well as the radical statistics of sentencing, characteristics
of prejudice would be expected from those in the Legislative positions of South Carolina. Being the first State to succeed from
the Union, starting the Civil War and the inevitable end of slavery, many view South Carolina as a breeding zone for racism and
prejudice, even in the political realm. In Actuality, those assumptions are completely wrong, and, for the most part, have been so
since the start of Reconstruction in the late nineteenth century and the end of Democratic rule.
The conventional meetings to ratify the state constitution in 1877-78 are a prime example, showing that the number of African
American representatives there outnumbered those that were white 75-49. This result weighed the Republican Party to a larger
number than the Democrats, which, at the time, was more beneficial to the fundamentals of Reconstruction. From here, through
the evolution of the political parties, roles have changed, and the number of representatives has fluctuated as well.
Today, Democrats now favor minorities more so than Republicans in South Carolina, where in the House of
Representatives, Republicans outweigh Democrats 74-50, and in the Senate also 25-20. Differing from the late nineteenth
century, this doesn’t exhibit much, but with a minority favoring party with less numbers, some have suspicion that prejudice in
the Republican Party is available and sometimes used. Also, when considering the amount of minorities in the South Carolina
Congress since the end of Reconstruction, there have only been five women and one African American who have been
members. Comparing these numbers to other state Congress’s and the entire US Congress, South Carolina demonstrates the least
diversity. With this information, prejudice does seem like an viable possibility, but the fact that South Carolina’s entire
Legislature has had no major problems dealing with bias since incorporating minorities, it is safe to say that the political aspect
of the Judicial system since Reconstruction has prevailed over its many undermines.
For statistical information visit:
http://www.scstatehouse.net/
http://senate.gov/pagelayout/reference/two_column_table/stats_and_lists.htm
http://congressionalblackcaucus.net/
For more general information visit:
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5469
http://www.usca.edu/aasc/newman.htm
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart5b.html
criminal justice in the south | hate crimes | police brutality | sentencing | judicial | politics
posted 12/7/06 by Philadelphia University Honors History 1, Fall 2006