SON OF A BITCH!
It was not illegal for the Mississippi Supreme Court to appoint my father to preside over a trial in which I was assisting the prosecution.
Not illegal, but wildly unusual, and absolutely deliberate.
I could have fought it, but I already knew that I wouldn’t. It gave us a second, decent ground for the eventual, inevitable appeal.
Most people in town, Japheth reported, were positively delighted with the news. Everyone knew that Judge Corbett was “fair” and “honest” and “sensible.” Judge Corbett “understands the true meaning of justice.”
“That is exactly what I am afraid of,” I said.
Having spent the first part of my life listening to my father pontificate, I knew one thing for certain: he might cloak himself in eloquence, reason, and formality, but underneath it all he believed that although Negroes might be absolutely free, thanks to the detested Mr. Lincoln, nowhere was it written that Negroes deserved to be absolutely equal.
Judge Corbett and men of his class had gradually enshrined that inequality in law, and the highest court in the land had upheld its finding that “separate but equal” was good enough for everybody.
Now the trial was less than a week away, and one huge question was still outstanding: who would the state of Mississippi send to prosecute the case?
“My sources in the capital have heard nothing about it,” Japheth told L.J. and me. “It’s a big, holy secret.”