Petition for legal recognition of Black Californians

To The Honerable, The Senate and Assembly of the State of California,

The undersigned, Natives of the United States; and residents of the State of California; respectfully represent unto your Honerable bodies, that the Statutes of the State of California, prohibiting persons of one-half of more of negro blood from being witnesses in an Action or Proceeding to which a white person is a party, and prohibiting persons who have one-eigth part or more of negro blood from giving evidence in favor of, or against, any white person, in a criminal Action, ought, in the opinion of your Petitioners, to be repealed.

That said Statutes are unjust and oppressive both to the white and the black; That crime often goes unpunished for the reason that the only witnesses to its commission are persons diabled by these statutes from testifying.

That the honest white man is also estopped from the use of the exisiting evidence of persons of color, to legitimate transactions.

That pretended and fraudulent claims and evidences of indebtedness are often placed in the hands of white men, proporting upon their face to have arisen in due course of business, against colored persons, for the purpose of excluding colored evidence of payment or satisfaction; and these claims are often sued upon and the amounts recovered.

Your Petitioners are of opinion that Judges and Jurors ought to be allowed to judge of the weight which should be given to evidence of colored persons, and that they should be as capable of determining whether a black man is speaking the truth, as a white man.

We believe that the exclusion of the testimony, unless of a race held as slaves or of one having an Idolatrous Religion, that the exclusion of the testimony of the descendants of Africans, in the United States, commenced as incident to slavery, and should be discontinued with it.

In presenting this Petition, we respectfully suggest, that justice and an impartial administration of the laws, both in civil and criminal cases, demands that the 30 clauses of Section 394 of the Civil Practice Act, and the 14th Section of An Act entitled An Act Concerning Crimes and Punishments, should be repealed.