In this constitutional case, the U.S. Supreme Court, composed entirely of Bok Guey (whites), adjudged Hon Yen (Chinese) to be in the same social classification as Lo Mok (blacks).ย The Supreme Courtโs decision permitted the state of Mississippi to define Martha Lum as a member of the โcolored racesโ so that โwhite schoolsโ could remain segregated.ย The origins of โLotuses among the Magnoliasโ involved southern plantersโ fears that emancipation had spoiled their newly freed slaves.ย The question posed by planters was whether the freed people would work without the sting of the lash. Planters answered by recruiting Chinese labor and by 1900 the majority of coolie labor came from the โSze Yapโ or Four Counties district southwest of Canton in South China.
By the 1920s a thriving Chinese community had developed in Mississippi which now included school age children.ย In 1924, Rosedale Consolidated High School forced Martha Gong Lum, daughter of a prosperous Chinese grocer, to leave school because of her ethnicity.ย The Gong Lums sued but the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled, โChinese are not white and must fall under the heading, colored races.โย On appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Gong Lums listened as the high court justices agreed with the Mississippi court and stated, โSimilar laws (of segregation) have been enacted by Congress under its general powerโฆover the District of Columbia as well as byโฆmany of the Statesโฆthroughout the Union, both in the North and South.โ
