On November 21, 1927, in Gong Lum v. Rice, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Chinese American Lum family and upheld Mississippi’s power to force nine-year-old Martha Lum to attend a “colored school” outside the district in which she lived.

Applying the “separate but equal” doctrine established in 1896’s Plessy v. Ferguson decision, the Court held that the maintenance of separate schools based on race was “within the constitutional power of the state legislature to settle, without intervention of the federal courts.”

First adopted in 1890 following the end of Reconstruction, the Mississippi Constitution divided children into racial categories of Caucasian or “brown, yellow, and Black” and mandated racially segregated public education.

The Lum family had two American-born children who had attended local public schools for white children without incident until, in the wake of an increase in anti-Chinese sentiment nationwide after passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, they were told by administrators that their children could only attend the district’s school for Black children.

To read the entire article: https://www.newyorkalmanack.com/2024/11/supreme-court-asian-colored-school/