Isabel Wilkerson Instagram – This is one of the starkest images of segregation and caste in 20th Century America. George W. McLaurin, a retired professor, was denied entry to the University of Oklahoma under Jim Crow and had to go all the way to the Supreme Court to gain admittance as a grad student in 1948.
Once he enrolled, he was forced to sit conspicuously alone in an anteroom on the other side of a wall, apart from the white students. He was forced to sit by himself in the cafeteria. When he needed to study in the library, he was forced to sit at a designated desk behind a stack of newspapers so that the white students would not have to see him.
This was a humiliating example of a central pillar of caste — the fundamental belief in the purity of the dominant caste and the fear of pollution from the castes deemed beneath it. Until the civil rights era, the subordinated caste was quarantined in every sphere of life in much of the U.S., made untouchable on American terms, well into the 20th Century.
This treatment fell under the doctrine of “Separate but Equal” asserted in the 1896 Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson — “equality” belied by the stark visibility of the humiliation he endured.
McLaurin sued again, and the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in his favor in June 1950. Chief Justice Fred Vinson wrote that the treatment of McLaurin was a violation of the 14th Amendment: “Such restrictions impair and inhibit his ability to study,” Vinson wrote, “to engage in discussions and exchange views with other students, and, in general, to learn his profession.”
His case, argued by Thurgood Marshall of the NAACP, laid the groundwork for the landmark ruling of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
McLaurin spoke of the dehumanization he endured, a hallmark of caste, and how he had to fight to overcome:
“Some colleagues would look at me like I was an animal,” he said. “No one would give me a word, the teachers seemed like they were not even there for me, nor did they always take my questions when I asked. But I devoted myself so much that afterwards, they began to look for me to give them explanations and to clear their questions.”
Let us honor his courage. #blackhistory | Posted on 16/Feb/2024 03:20:13
