Colored Children Excluded

A judge denies a woman the right to send her black children to white schools because of the “separate but equal” doctrine.

Justice Wilmot M. Smith, in the Queens County Supreme Court, has denied the application of Mrs. Cisco, a colored woman, for a writ of peremptory mandamus to compel the School Board of Queens to admit all children, irrespective of color, to the public schools of that borough.
Attempted to Send Them.
Mrs. Cisco testified that she attempted to send her children, who are Negroes, to the Brenton-Avenue School, in Jamaica, but they had been denied admittance by the principal, who ordered her to take the children to the separate school for colored children. In addition, Mrs. Cisco swore that she had made other similar attempts at other public schools with the same result.
The woman claimed that the studier in the colored school were not far enough advanced for her children. She was twice arrested for the violation of the school law for not sending her children to school, and each time was acquitted. Judge Smith in his decision says:
“The Court of Appeals decided that under the provisions of the common school act of 1884, authorizing the establishment of separate schools for the education of the colored race, the school authorities have the power when, in their opinion, the interests of education will be prompted thereby, to establish schools for the exclusive use of colored children, and when such schools are established and provided with equal facilities for education, to exclude colored children from the school provided for white children.
“There is no claim upon the part of the relator that the statute had ever been expressly repealed by implication cannot be seriously entertained. The motion is denied without costs.”

“Colored Children Excluded,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed May 12, 2025, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1708.