Comment – Opinion. The following is a very short synopsis of the a Supreme Court decision handed down in 1967. I have omitted many of the finer points as they are extremely detailed and boring – so here goes.
While I was a senior in college I had a law class on public policy. One of the requirements was to do a precis, (a short encapsulation of the main points of the decision- usually in a few sentences), on a Supreme Court decision. In a random draw I landed Doris Daniels and Rosalyn Kyles vs Euell Paul, Jr., (ie, The Lake Nixon Cub.)
Lake Nixon Club, located west of Little Rock, Arkansas, was a recreational area that admitted only whites. With the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the club was under pressure to admit blacks – Daniels, Kyles, et al, being refused entry, filed a petition for remedy. To circumvent the issue, the club began charging membership, (25 cents, as I remember),in order to have the status of a private club. The Justice Dept said otherwise pointing out the fact that the club was a public accommodation because it had products on it’s premises that had crossed state lines and was therefore subject to “conditions affecting commerce” under sec 201(b) of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Eull Paul however had a card up his sleeve, and declared that not one food product, including hot dogs, which were produced locally, or any other item on the property had crossed state lines – this turned out to be true – for the moment.
Shortly after the controversy started, a rabbi in Chicago that owned the firm producing spices that flavor kosher as well as non kosher hot dogs, realized that the local producer of those hot dogs, (in Arkansas), was using spices that had come from his factory in Chicago and therefore had crossed state lines. The rabbi being a good citizen squealed to the feds, and the rest is history - and that’s how “kosher” products, helped enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – no kidding.
Beaudreaux
