Another Adverse Decision

A 1902 court case denying a black man his right to vote is reversed and is now a symbol of “progress” and the acknowledgment of human rights within the Supreme Court.

The United States Circuit Court handed down an opinion Thursday, November 5th, 1908 in the Brick house case. This suit arose out of the refusal of the election judges William Jessop and C.T. Brooks to allow a colored citizen named Brick-house to vote in a congressional election in 1902 and was in the nature of a test case, relative to the validity of the “unconstitutional” constitution of Virginia. The opinion shows that Judge Nathan B. Goff and his associated are “trimming their sails” so to speak in accordance with the recent anti-Negro decisions of the United States Supreme Court. They will never remember being reversed by that tribunal, so long as they continue along the lines marked out and the present supreme tribunal remains as it is now constituted. Judge Goff indulges in the policy of evasion which has become such a characteristic of the decisions of the Supreme Court at Washington. We are frank to state that we have never expected any other result from this case, although there were thousands of colored people, who indulged in rainbow chasing in the direction of a United States Court. Judge Emory Speer of Georgia is rather a remarkable character, in that judicial reverses by a higher tribunal do not affect him so long as he believed he is right and he gives counsel an opportunity as well as the annoyance of appealing in all cases where he rules in favor of human rights. Hon. John S. Wise of New York and James H. Hayes, Esq. and J.C. Carter, we believe were counsel in this case. They did their duty and the responsibility is with the court.

“Another Adverse Decision,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed August 13, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/742.