Image Above: Kate Lum with her daughters, Berda Chan and Martha Gee, 1915. Courtesy of Alvin Gee and the Lum Family.
"The Mississippi State Constitution provides that separate schools shall be maintained for children of the white and colored races. The court held that this provision of the Constitution divided the educable children into those of the pure white or Caucasian race on the one hand and the brown, yellow, and black races on the other.  And therefore, Martha Lum, of the Mongolian or yellow race, could not insist on being classed with the whites..." - from Chinese Must Go to Colored Schools
"...it was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause for whites to segregate black from white children for fear that the former would contaminate the latter, and then expose Chinese children to that contamination by classifying them as "colored" and relegating them to colored" schools.  Gong Lum was in effect arguing that he was happy for his children to go to school with white children, but did not want them exposed to the "dangers" of having to go to school with black children." -Edward White
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"Jeu Gong Lum and Kate Lum, 1918." Cleveland, MS: Delta State University Archives, Courtesy Alvin Gee and Lum Family.
"The court held that this provision of the Constitution divided the educable children into those of the pure white or Caucasian race on the one hand and the brown, yellow, and black races on the other.  And therefore, Martha Lum, of the Mongolian or yellow race, could not insist on being classed with the whites under this Constitution division."-from "Chinese Must Go to Colored Schools", Afro-American.
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"Chinese Must Go to Colored Schools" Supreme Court Rules That White Schools Are For Whites Only." Afro-American [Balitmore, MD], 26 Nov. 1927, p. 2 ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
With the help of renowned lawyer Governor Earl Brewer, Gong Lum sued Bolivar County Schools and won their local case to let Martha and Berda back in school. However, Brewer got distracted from this case, when he agreed to take up another landmark civil rights case, and left Lum with a less-experienced attorney for the appeals to Mississippi and the U.S. Supreme Court.  Chief Justice and former President William Howard Taft's court issued one of the most racist rulings in history, when it decided Martha Lum was not allowed to attend a white school, because she was of the "yellow" race.
Audio Clip Above: "Cameron Tichy: 'Why do you think most people have never heard of this case when it comes between Plessy and Brown, and went all the way to the Supreme Court?'

Adrienne Berard: 'I think most people haven't heard of it because it doesn't fit the story that we tell ourselves, about the American South, that there were only two races and that everything was segregated between black and white... If you look at immigrant populations when you talk about the American South, it's not the story that we know. And I think it's confusing... So, I think that's one reason. Another reason, I think the biggest reason we don't know about it is because they lost. Had they won, this would be a big victory, and it would be in every textbook. But because they lost, it was easy to forget.'"-Adrienne Berard, Author. Personal Interview by Cameron Tichy.
"The Lum v. Rice ruling was a critical setback in civil rights legislation in the South and resulted in a flattening of racial and ethnic identity in Southern courts- you were either white or non-white." -Jacqueline Clay