Mr. FAISON. He could have held it in his files for at least 2 or 3 weeks before he cashed it, and it might have taken the check 2 or 3 weeks to be processed, and it might have been in the process. Senator ERVIN. You had knowledge of the fact when you got your bank statement that your check had not been paid, but you feel there was no obligation on you about that, but the obligation was on the other man? Mr. FAISON. I will put it like this: If I were to and the check bounced, would you directly pick would you contact me because the check was bad? me for a period of time? write you a check out a warrant, or If you had known If anybody takes Senator ERVIN. I will tell you what I would do. my check and keeps it for 3 or 4 months, I write and tell him to please present it. Do you do that? Mr. FAISON. I got a statement the 1st of February. The next statement was in July, after I had been apprehended, and the check had been settled. Senator ERVIN. You do know there is a law in North Carolina which makes it a crime for a person to write a check where there are not sufficient funds in the bank? Mr. FAISON. There were sufficient funds. Senator ERVIN. You saw the check, didn't you? Mr. FAISON. Yes. Senator ERVIN. And it was stamped "insufficient funds"? Mr. FAISON. That is right. Senator ERVIN. And that stamp having been made by the Durham bank, does that indicate that the Durham bank was trying to dis-criminate against you? Mr. FAISON. If you request it, I have the certified statement from the cashier of the Durham bank in my room, and I will present it this afternoon, from December 27 to May 17. Senator ERVIN. I don't care about that. But I am saying that the Durham bank is the one who stamped this "insufficient funds." And the bank had told you that that was a mistake? Mr. FAISON. He said if his bank stamped it, it was a mistake. Mr. FAISON. I have all of it in my room. I am living with Mr. Blue. I have the check and the certified statements. Senator ERVIN. Anyway, your father had been registered and voted for many years? Mr. FAISON. That is right. Senator ERVIN. How many years had he been voting, to your knowledge? Mr. FAISON. To my knowledge, as long as I can remember-I am 25 years old and he told me that he registered to vote for the first time in 1932 when President Roosevelt took office. Senator ERVIN. Nobody had ever interfered with his voting, had they? Mr. FAISON. No. Senator ERVIN. Now, you say that this lady, Mrs. Taylor-what was her name? Mr. FAISON. Mrs. Helen Taylor. I don't remember her middle initial. Senator ERVIN. Anyway, she was conducting this registration in a store building that belonged to her? Mr. FAISON. That is right, her husband. Senator ERVIN. And Mrs. Taylor testified, did she not, that this lawyer assaulted her, or threatened to assault her? Mr. FAISON. She testified that he talked with her--she didn't testify that he threatened her he threatened her with a lawsuit, but not by force he testified that he talked to her. Senator ERVIN. Anyway, you said that a Mrs. Garrison Mr. FAISON. Mrs. Maggie Garrison-she was a midwife, and her license was suspended for 90 days-why, I don't know. Senator ERVIN. I am glad that you don't know that, because I think that you know as much about that as you do about these other things. With all due respect to you, I think that you imagine a lot of things. Mr. FAISON. I am only stating the facts. Mr. BLUE. In closing this argument I would like to make a point here, that here is a man who has had 4 years of military service, volunteered, who comes home to North Carolina, goes down to register, and is rejected, in his first year of college, as not being competent in reading and interpreting the Constitution. And in that very process we have illustrated an instance of how the franchise and the right to register is denied. We have here a test which is arbitrarily given, arbitrarily interpreted, and the courts have since upheld her rejection on the ground that it was not to her satisfaction-and no standard of satisfaction is specified in the process. Further, that out of this case Senator ERVIN. This is testimony I regret to hear from anybody. The witness states that he gave his check on a Durham bank to a man operating a filling station in Seaboard, which is 110 miles distant from Durham; that the Durham bank stamped the check "insufficient funds" and declined to honor it; and that the witness subsequently paid court costs and the check because a warrant was issued by a court in Seaboard at the instance of the operator of the filling station. It is a tragic thing for the witness to be brought here to testify that the check was not paid on presentation by the Durham bank and that the warrant was sued out by the filling station operator by way of economic discrimination on account of the race or color of the witness. The witness bases his deductions upon the theory that there was a conspiracy between the filling station man and the bank 110 miles. away-a bank that is run by highly reputable colored citizens of North Carolina who wouldn't have entered into such a conspiracy. Mr. FAISON. I think you are more or less misconstruing the ideaI am not trying to stipulate the idea that there was a conspiracy between the two. I will admit the fact that this check was stamped "insufficient funds." If it was a mistake, that is O. K.; if it was not, it was O. K. But the fact I am stating is that there was not good faith in the presenting of this after I had attempted registration on May 12, after the check had been written for a period of approximately 6 months. Mr. SLAYMAN. How much did your brother have to settle this for? Mr. FAISON. $12.30. Mr. SLAYMAN. What were those; court costs? Senator ERVIN. Yes. We have a law in North Carolina making it a crime to issue a check where there are insufficient funds to cover it. Mr. SLAYMAN. Does he plead guilty? Senator ERVIN. Evidently he already did. Mr. FAISON. At the time, with the arresting officer there was a group Senator ERVIN. I have known many people to be arrested for issuing checks under this law. I wouldn't have a man arrested for $2.80, but there are a lot of people who will. Let's get to other things. You went up to register, and you were denied registration? Mr. FAISON. That is right. Senator ERVIN. And Mrs. Garrison was denied registration? Mr. FAISON. I don't know. Senator ERVIN. Did you report this to the NAACP? Mr. FAISON. No. Senator ERVIN. You didn't report it to the field representative of the NAACP? Mr. FAISON. On May 12, approximately 2 hours later, I retained a lawyer, and I went back for registration. The following week I gave a statement of this case to the NAACP, the following week-I believe it was the following Friday. And that is all. Senator ERVIN. Well, you did take that step. Now, you say that Lawyer Walker was later tried for disorderly conduct before the local court? Mr. FAISON. Yes; the recorder's court. Senator ERVIN. The recorder's court of Northampton County. And he was convicted by that court? Mr. FAISON. Yes. Senator ERVIN. In that court one man sits as a judge and jury; isn't that right? Mr. FAISON. I don't recall. Senator ERVIN. Were you there at the time? Mr. FAISON. I was, at the time. Senator ERVIN. Do you know whether the case was tried in that court before a jury or just before a judge? Mr. FAISON. I don't believe there was a jury; I am not sure. Senator ERVIN. But anyway, he was convicted there, and then he appealed to the superior court of Northampton County. He was tried there before a jury; wasn't he? Mr. FAISON. The charges were changed between the two courts, from disorderly conduct and trespassing to assault on a female, in the superior court, and he was convicted of the assault on a female. Senator ERVIN. Convicted by a jury? Mr. FAISON. Yes. Senator ERVIN. And your case came on trial. Was it tried before a jury; your suit in the superior court? Mr. FAISON. Yes. Senator ERVIN. And the jury found that you didn't live in the Seaboard precinct? Mr. FAISON. The jury, by hearsay testimony, found the fact that I didn't live there. But there was no maps, no documents stating where the precinct line was. The only thing they had were four people to appear who said that they had always heard that the precinct line ended with the township line, that is all. Yet, my father had been voting in the Seaboard precinct since 1935. Senator ERVIN. Without any question? Mr. FAISON. My brother was registered on the same day, without any question, in the precinct, plus Johnny Jordan was registered in 1932 without any question of the precinct. The question of precinct came up after I had filed the case challenging the validity of the State law. And in this reply they stated that I had not lived in the precinct for the last 25 years. That is when the question of the precinct came into being. Senator ERVIN. You also objected to the type of evidence that was presented before you? Mr. FAISON. The Seaboard precinct line-my house had been recognized as being within that boundary for the last 20 years, and there were no maps-it was just hearsay for someone to get up and say they had always heard that the precinct line ended up the road. Senator ERVIN. You go to North Carolina College, in Durham? Mr. FAISON. I do. Senator ERVIN. You are a sophomore there this year? Mr. FAISON Yes; I am. Senator ERVIN. That is all. Mr. SLAYMAN. Just one more thing for the record. Since we had our list of witnesses mimeographed, and we had previously heard from Mr. Blue that Mr. Faison wanted to testify, I hadn't heard whether a schedule had been agreed upon for him. I just want to understand whether this is all right with you. Senator ERVIN. Yes; I am glad to do it. Mr. BLUE. I appreciate the chairman giving us this opportunity spontaneously, and I wanted to have you hear Mr. Faison. I did not review the testimony or go over it with him in advance; that is why it rambled as it did, because we thought that you would elicit the facts in the questioning. Senator ERVIN. I would like Mr. Giles to come around. STATEMENT OF ROBERT GILES, ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA Senator ERVIN. Your name is Robert Giles? Mr. GILES. Yes, sir. Senator ERVIN. You are assistant attorney general of North Carolina? Mr. GILES. Yes, sir. Mr. ERVIN. Do you know anything about any of these cases that this boy has been talking about? Mr. GILES. I know only about the voting registration case, Senator, which was tried in the Northampton superior court. The attorney general, as you know, under North Carolina law, is notified if a statute is alleged to be unconstitutional and he is authorized to appear in court and raise any points that he may have. And Judge Patton had assigned me to this case, and asked me to be at this trial. And I was there and assisted the country attorney, Mr. Riddle, in the defense of the suit. The registrar, the defendant in the case, had two main defenses: (1) That the plaintiff, the one that just testified, was not a resident of Seaboard precinct; and (2) that the plaintiff had not passed the reading test when she gave it to him back in May. Now, on the first point we made it clear, and everybody recognized, that the registrar, when Mr. Faison came in back in May, asked him, did he live in Seaboard precinct and he said, "Yes," and she accepted his word on that. It did not go into details as to where the boundary line was, she simply accepted his word and that, of course, is the ordinary practice, that you go into register and you certify that you are a resident of a precinct. And that is accepted unless somebody raises objection. But it was proper in January when the matter was tried for the defendant to raise all legal objections which were available and one of course was, registered in the precinct. And the evidence was uncontroverted that the precinct boundary line of the Seaboard precinct coincided with the boundary line of the township. And it is true that the plaintiff did not put on maps, there were no maps, and all of that. And many of the precinct boundaries in our State are established by traditional reputation and we do not have maps. And all of the evidence that was presented at the trial showed conclusively that they had always considered that the precinct boundary line of Seaboard was the same as the township boundary line. The plaintiff testified that his father had been registered in that precinct for many years, and it was also brought out that his father, when he first registered in that precinct had lived at a different place, nearly within the middle of the precinct. And then, of course, when he moved out, as quite often happens, no question was raised about his residence. And his brother came in, as I understand on the same morning, he was asked if he resided in Seaboard precinct, and he answered the registrar "Yes," and he was registered on that basis. The witness here brings out the fact that these other people, members of his family, were registered in that Seaboard precinct. But I wish simply to make for the record the point that no one had ever raised the question with them, no one had challenged them on that. Now, that went to the jury, Senator, and on that jury there were three colored citizens, one of whom I understand afterward-there was no challenge made to the jury panel-one of the colored citizens was the president of the local NAACP chapter, and the jury found on the evidence that the boundary line of the Seaboard precinct was what has been testified to, and that the plaintiff was not a resident of Seaboard precinct. Now, on the matter of his reading test before the registrar, she testified that he missed several words, and she pointed them out at the trial. And the registrar's theory-it is something that can be proved but it was her theory that she expressed at the trial, and it was one of the defenses, that plaintiff had come in and deliberately misread these words and had refused to give proper definitions and so on. And that was her theory. And we urged at that trial that it simply didn't make sense, that a man who was in the first year in college, had been through high school, couldnt have read that section of the constitution. Now, that was one of the defenses we urged at the trial. The plaintiff on the witness stand denied that. The plaintiff did admit that he didn't read various words there in that section the same as was read at the trial. And we read the words at the trial and said, "Well, now, |