2 The Nation.
Forgotten History
Although David Cole’s review of
Steve Luxenberg’s book Separate:
The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson, and
America’s Journey From Slavery to
Segregation [“Inherently Unequal,”
July 15/22] fails to delve into an
impor tant forerunner of this his-
toric case, one hopes Luxenberg
did not. The Civil Rights Act of
1875 expanded the 14th Amend-
ment to include public accom-
modations, and this expansion was
tested by a black man, Bird Gee,
who was denied service at a hotel.
His case made it to the Supreme
Court, which not only ruled against
Gee but used the case to annul the
Civil Rights Act, thereby setting
the stage for Plessy and 70 more
years of Jim Crow. In a nifty coinci-
dence, however, Gee’s grandnephew
Loren Miller, a prominent civil
rights attor ney, filed the appellate
briefs in 1954’s landmark Brown v.
Board of Education, overturning
Plessy and redeeming his grand-
uncle’s heroic efforts.
Vincent Brook
los angeles
Debating Biden
It’s obvious that the powers that be
at The Nation do not like Joe Biden
and have recently published snippy,
myopic little articles attacking him
on narrow issues like his opposition
to mandatory busing 45 years ago
and his friendly nature, with friend-
ships that have included some racist
Republicans [“Biden and Segrega-
tion” by Jonathan Kozol, July 1/8,
and “Pal Joey” by Jeet Heer,
July 15/22]. What are you going to
do when Biden gets the Democratic
nomination in 2020? Are you going
to support him, or are you going to
continue your opposition to Biden
and recommend voting for Trump?
You better get your act together.
We live in an imperfect world. Let’s
try to make it a little better.
Lyle Swenson
stillwater, minn.Re Jeet Heer’s “Pal Joey”: Joe
Biden lost me when he humiliated
Anita Hill. He would be a terrible
president. How can anyone vote
for him simply because he would be
better than Trump? My Persian cat
Zeke would be a better president
than Trump. Jack OxI don’t want Biden to be the
nominee, but I’m prepared to live
with this possibility. What I find
lacking in takedowns like this is a
sufficient sense of historical context:
Why would a number of prominent
Democrats, not just Southerners,
have tried to ride the wave of white
urban backlash in the 1970s, espe-
cially after Richard Nixon’s victories
over Hubert Humphrey and George
McGovern? Remember Jimmy Car-
ter’s remarks on “ethnic purity” while
campaigning in 1976? As the maver-
ick candidate and a presumed advo-
cate for civil rights, he caught much
flak for that remark, but I’m not
sure there wasn’t a certain rearguard
movement already entrenched within
the party. I’m not excusing Biden for
his chumminess with segregationists,
but who was expecting a firebrand to
rise from the Senate floor and shame
them back then? William LevineCorrection
“Inherently Unequal” by David Cole
[July 15/22] mistakenly states that
Justice John Marshall Harlan was the
Supreme Court’s only Southern jus-
tice when the court upheld segrega-
tion in Plessy v. Ferguson. In fact, he
was one of two Southerners; Justice
Edward Douglass White of Louisi-
ana was the other.STONEWA
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