Katherine Lum - Fight for Education
Advocate
Born: Unknown
Died: 1988
Katherine Lum was a determined mother who challenged racial discrimination in education and inspired future movements for equal rights.
In the fall of 1924, two sisters, Martha and Berda Lum, walked into their school in Rosedale, Mississippi, ready to begin another year. Instead, the principal called them into his office and explained that they could no longer attend. The order had come from the school board, and there was nothing he could do. The girls’ parents, Katherine and Jeu Gong Lum, were shocked and angry. What happened that day would lead to a Supreme Court case three years later, long before segregation in schools was declared unconstitutional.
Jeu Gong Lum had come to the United States from China in 1904 and settled in the Mississippi Delta. He married Katherine Wong, a Chinese American woman, and opened a general store in Benoit that mostly served Black customers. Many Black families preferred to shop at Chinese-owned stores, where they were treated with more respect.
The couple had three children: Berda, Martha, and later a son. They worked hard and wanted their children to have more opportunities than they had. Martha, in particular, was a strong student and earned good grades at school.
In 1923, the Lums moved to Rosedale. For two years, Berda and Martha attended the local high school, which was mostly white. But in September 1924, after a new immigration law had passed, the school board announced that Chinese children could no longer attend white schools. The Lum daughters were told they were “not white.”
The only other option was the poorly funded school for Black students, which had fewer supplies, shorter terms, and underpaid teachers. The Lums believed their daughters deserved better. They hired Earl Brewer, a former governor of Mississippi, to argue their case. He filed a lawsuit, saying that Martha Lum, an American citizen, was unfairly classified as “colored.”
In November 1924, a county judge ruled in favor of the Lums and ordered the school to readmit Martha. But the school board appealed, and in 1925 the Mississippi Supreme Court unanimously reversed the decision. Justice George Ethridge wrote that Mississippi law considered Asian people “colored” and therefore not allowed in white schools. He also pointed to laws that had banned marriages between white and Asian people since 1892, proving that the state did not see Asians as white.
The Lums appealed again, and in 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. Earl Brewer was busy with another case, so a younger lawyer, James Flowers, took over. Unfortunately, Flowers was inexperienced and not an expert in constitutional law. His written arguments were confusing, sometimes defending segregation, sometimes opposing it.
When the case was presented, Flowers asked the Court to decide only on written arguments rather than speaking in person. Chief Justice William Howard Taft wrote the unanimous decision. He ruled that states had the power to separate students by race as long as “separate schools” were available. Citing Plessy v. Ferguson, the Court said this did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. This decision, known as Lum v. Rice, became a major setback for civil rights.
After losing the case, the Lums moved to Arkansas, where Chinese children were sometimes allowed in white schools. They later left the Delta altogether. Other Chinese families in Mississippi also left, some returning to China. In the 1930s, Mississippi even built a few schools just for Chinese students, though most closed by 1947.
Newspapers across the country reacted strongly. The Los Angeles Times supported the ruling, saying segregation should be even stronger. But Black newspapers, like the Chicago Defender, condemned the decision, pointing out that “separate” schools were far from equal.
Although the case was a loss for the Lum family, it drew national attention to the injustice of segregated schools. It became one of the stepping stones that eventually led to Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, when the Supreme Court finally ruled that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.
Historians still call Lum v. Rice one of the most damaging Supreme Court decisions of the 20th century. Yet the Lums’ fight showed remarkable courage. Even in defeat, their case paved the way for future victories in the battle for equal education.
SOURCES:
Begley, Sarah. “Lum v Rice: School Segregation Case That Set a Bad Precedent.” Time, Time, 18 Oct. 2016, time.com/4533476/lum-v-rice-water-tossing-boulders/.
Lum v. Rice Facts for Kids, kids.kiddle.co/Lum_v._Rice.
“Martha and Berda Lum.” Stanford University Libraries , exhibits.stanford.edu/riseup/feature/martha-and-berda-lum.
Keywords: Civil Rights, Justice, Courage, Perseverance, Freedom, Responsibility, Challenge Injustices, Stand Up for Your Beliefs