The Chinese-Only Schools of the Jim Crow South

In 1924, Chinese American parent Gong Lum sued for his daughter's right to attend a white school in Mississippi. A lower court initially ruled in his favor, with the judge reasoning that Chinese people were 'wholly different' from African Americans.

Yellow is a color too

But the victory did not last. The state Supreme Court overturned the decision, citing the state constitution's requirement of separate schools for 'white and colored' children. The court concluded: yellow, after all, was a color.

Gong lost, but his legal strategy reveals a lot: he argued the Chinese should not be classified as 'colored.' This was common among Chinese in the Jim Crow South, who desperately wanted to distance themselves from Blackness.

Proving they were 'good whites' through mission schools

For Chinese community leaders, sending their children to Black schools was out of the question. So they embraced Baptist missionaries and founded their own Chinese-only schools.

The missionaries taught English and 'American' domestic habits; the Chinese showed whites they were not heathens. These schools, like the Cleveland Chinese Mission School, were often not accredited and of poor quality, but they helped Chinese families gain some social acceptance.

The cost: they kept their distance from Black neighbors, fearing that any association would undo their hard-won status. Mixed-race families were ostracized; their children were barred from the Chinese schools and ended up in Black schools.

Cracks in the wall

As segregation persisted, some Chinese families sent their older children to public schools in California or Texas. It took until the mid-1940s for white Delta schools to open up.

This history shows that segregation wasn't just about black and white: it forced Chinese Americans to choose a side, and their solution was to build a parallel school system of their own — a vivid reminder that 'separate but equal' was never equal at all.