Michigan
Workman
vs
Board
In April of 1868, Joseph Workman attempted to enroll his biracial son into a school. The school denied the boy because of his race. Workman filed a lawsuit with the Michigan Supreme Court. He had many supporters including a group of civil rights activists, the Second Baptist Church, future Governor John J. Bagley, and Fannie Richards (Detroit’s first Black teacher). Workman claimed that a state law, requiring equal access to any school in a district, applied to Detroit and Black students. The Detroit Board of Education argued that this legislation did not apply because “There exists among a large majority of the white population of Detroit a strong prejudice or animosity against colored people, which is largely transmitted to the children in the schools, and this feeling would engender quarrels and contention if colored children were admitted to the white schools.”
