Fair Ways

Book excerpt: Annotation In the summer of 1955, six African American golfers in Beaumont, Texas, began attacking the Jim Crow caste system when they filed a federal lawsuit for the right to play the municipal golf course. The golfers and their African American lawyers went to federal court and asked a conservative white Republican judge to render a decision that would not only integrate the local golf course but also set precedent for desegregation of other public facilities. In Fair Ways, Robert J. Robertson chronicles three parallel stories that converged in this important case. He tells the story of the plaintiffs-avid golfers who had learned the game while working as caddies and waiters-of their young lawyers, recent graduates from Howard University law school, and of the Republican judge just appointed to the bench by President Eisenhower. Using public case papers, public records, newspapers, and oral histories, Robertson has recreated the scene in Beaumont on the eve of desegregation. Fair Ways gives a vivid picture of racial segregation and the forces that brought about its end.