Page:Race distinctions in American Law (IA racedistinctions00stepiala).pdf/167

 condition, in working convicts. This does not mean that they shall not be separated, as they are in Georgia, but is simply a prohibition against discrimination in the quality of work assigned to the two races. At the last session of the legislature of North Carolina,[107] a bill was passed providing for the separation of white and colored prisoners in the State penitentiary and in the State and county convict camps during sleeping and eating hours.

That a separation of the two races exists in the jails of Washington City is evidenced by a protest issued a year or so ago by the National Equal Rights Council of that city, a Negro organization, against the separation of the white and colored prisoners in the jails of the city. There was no allegation, however, that the cells were not equal in accommodation, the objection being raised solely at the principle of separation.[108]

As to reformatories, Georgia[109] provides that they shall be so constructed as to keep white and colored inmates separate. West Virginia[110] requires that the white and colored inmates of its reform school for boys shall be kept separate, and the inmates of its industrial home for girls (also a reformatory) shall be separate as far as practicable.

As to paupers, Alabama[111] authorizes the county commissioners of Washington County to keep separate accommodations for the maintenance of white and colored paupers.

Not many States have statutes which say in so many words that lunatics, and that the deaf, mute, and blind shall be kept separated according to race; but one finds