Building name dropped because of racist past By Lev D. Zilbermints
NEWARK – Rutgers University has decided to rename Bradley Hall, located at 110 Warren Street in Newark, New Jersey.
After more than 40 years, Bradley Hall will no longer have a name. This decision came about as a result of the investigation into the life of Joseph P. Bradley, a member of Rutgers College – Class of 1836, an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1870-1892, and a Rutgers trustee, 1858-1892.
Research by “Local Talk” showed that Justice Bradley was part of the Supreme Court that ruled that the protections of the 14th Amendment did not apply to the actions of individuals, but only to the actions of state government. This ruling occurred in the landmark case, United States v. Cruikshank, an 1876 Supreme Court case.
Background
The case came about following the controversial 1872 Louisiana gubernatorial election and the following Colfax massacre of April 13, 1873, in which anywhere between 100 – 280 black people and three white people were killed. What happened was that both Democrats and Republicans declared victory in the November 1872 gubernatorial elections. Both parties had their own slates for sheriff and justice of the peace. Blacks in those days tended to vote Republican.
An armed white Democrat militia attacked African-American Republican freedmen, who had gathered at the Grant Parish courthouse in Colfax, Louisiana to protect it from the pending Democratic takeover. Most blacks surrendered, as they were unarmed. In contrast, the Red Shirts, Ku Klux Klan, and other Democratic paramilitary groups were armed. There followed a massacre.
According to Leanna Keith’s 2008 online article, The Colfax Massacre, “some members of the white gangs were indicted and charged under the Enforcement Act of 1870. The Act had been designed primarily to allow Federal enforcement and prosecution of actions of the Ku Klux Klan and other secret vigilante groups against blacks, both for outside violence and murder, and for preventing them from voting. Among other provisions, the law made it a felony for two or more people to conspire to deprive anyone of his constitutional rights.”
According to legal research, Cruikshank, 92 U.S. at 544-554 “the white defendants were charged with sixteen counts, divided into two sets of eight each. Among the charges included violating the freedmen’s rights to lawfully assemble, vote and bear arms.”
It should be noted that Justice Bradley happened to attend the trial of the three men who were charged by the government. Bradley ruled that the Enforcement Act of 1870 was unconstitutional. The men were granted bail, paid it, and promptly disappeared.
On March 27, 1876, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could not use the 1870 law to stop violence by paramilitaries and groups on individuals. This allowed KKK and similar groups to use violence to suppress black voting with impunity. Black freedmen could not look to the legislatures, law enforcement or the courts for protection. Democrat-controlled white legislatures in the South refused to allow blacks the right to bear arms.
Constitutional commentator Leonard Levy wrote in the Encyclopedia of the American Constitution (1987), “Cruikshank paralyzed the federal government’s attempt to protect black citizens by punishing violators of the Civil Rights and, in effect, shaped the Constitution to the advantage of the Ku Klux Klan.” Not until 1966 did the Supreme Court overturn portions of the Cruikshank case. As late as 2010, Supreme Court decisions continued to overturn the 1876 case.
Women’s Rights
In the 1873 Bradwell v. State of Illinois case, Justice Bradley was among the 8-1 majority that held that the Privilege or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment did not include the right to practice a profession. In his concurring opinion, Bradley wrote in part, “The paramount destiny and mission of women are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator (83 U.S. 130, 142).” This decision denied Myra Bradwell, a woman, the right to practice her profession.
Rutgers BOG Resolution
According to a Rutgers Board of Governors resolution dated October 6, 2021, in 1971 Rutgers University acquired a prominent, seven-story building at 110 Warren Street, Newark, New Jersey, for the purposes of accommodating and expanding the academic and administrative operations of the Rutgers-Newark campus.
The resolution stated that “in Fall 2020, a committee of faculty, staff and students appointed by Chancellor Nancy Cantor to research and study the issue intensively has determined that contrary to the contemporary record, Justice Bradley played a role in perpetuating systemic racism and ushering in legalized discrimination in the period after the Civil War…”
On August 18, 2021, R-N Chancellor Nancy Cantor endorsed the recommendations of the Committee on the Naming of Bradley Hall and formally requested the University Naming Committee the removal of the name from Bradley Hall.
In response, on September 3, the University Naming Committee approved this request and recommended approval to Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway, who also approved it. From there, the matter passed to the Committee on Finance and Facilities, which also approved the removal of the name from Bradley Hall. The committee reviewed the proposed action on September 27, 2021, and recommended approval by the Board of Governors.
On October 6, 2021, 40 years after the naming of Bradley Hall, the Board of Governors approved the removal of the name from the building at 110 Warren Street. From now on, the building will be known by its address of 110 Warren Street.
