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In 1866, Yick Wo, a Chinese Immigrant, stood up to a city’s unfair law, and change civil rights forever. Join us as we explore how one man’s fight against injustice reached the U.S. Supreme Court and exposed the dangers of discrimination hidden within the legal system. This is the story behind Yick Wo v. Hopkins - and why it still matters today.
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Imagine this, it's the 1880s in San Francisco, and one man, an immigrant, trying to make an honest living, is facing down a law of design to destroy his business. The city says it's about safety, but he knows better. It's about discrimination. But instead of backing down, he fights, and that fight leads to a Supreme Court decision that quietly reshapes civil rights in America. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] Welcome to Hidden Vertics, where we uncover the legal battles you've never heard of, with that changed everything. Today we're telling the story of Yikwah versus Hopkins, a case about race, justice, and the power of one person to challenge a system stacked against them. To understand Yikwah versus Hopkins, we need to travel back to San Francisco in the late 1800s. The gold rush and the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad had attracted thousands of Chinese immigrants to California. By the 1880s, many of these immigrants had settled in San Francisco where they started small businesses, including laundries. In fact, over half of the city's laundries were owned by Chinese immigrants, but their success didn't sit well with everyone. Anti-Chinese sentiment was growing, fueled by racism and fear that Chinese immigrants were taking jobs from white Americans. In response, local governments, including San Francisco's, began passing laws aimed at limiting the success of the Chinese community, and the city's laundry ordinance was one of those laws. This ordinance required any person operating a laundry in a wooden building to obtain a permit. On the surface, it looked like a reasonable public safety measure. Many of the laundries were in wooden structures, and the risk of fire was real. But when you looked closer, it became clear that this law wasn't about safety. It was about targeting Chinese-owned businesses. The law was enforced with shocking bias, while nearly every white laundry owner who applied for a permit received one, almost every Chinese applicant was denied. Out of 200 Chinese owned laundries, not a single one was granted a permit. One of those laundry owners was a man named Yikwah. Yikwah had been running his laundry in a wooden building for over 20 years. He met all the city's safety requirements, but like his peers, he was denied a permit. Rather than close his business, Yikwah made a bold choice. He continued to operate without a permit, knowing that it could lead to his arrest. And sure enough, it did. Yikwah was arrested, fined, and taken to court, but instead of accepting his fate, he decided to challenge the law itself. What followed was a legal battle that would take him all the way to the United States Supreme Court. Yikwah argued that the laundry ordinance, as it was enforced, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. This clause was meant to protect formerly enslaved people after the Civil War, but Yikwah's lawyers argued that it applied to all people, including immigrants. The city of San Francisco claimed that the ordinance was neutral on its face. It didn't specifically target Chinese immigrants, but Yikwah's lawyers pointed to the discriminatory pattern of enforcement. Every single Chinese laundry owner was denied a permit, while white owners faced no such issues. The question at the heart of the case was, can a law that seems neutral still violate the Constitution if it's enforced in a discriminatory way? It was about how that law was applied. If the government could enforce laws unevenly, it could use seemingly innocent measures to carry out racial discrimination without ever writing race into the law itself. Yikwah's fight took his case all the way to the Supreme Court. The stakes were incredibly high. This case wasn't just about one man's business anymore. It was about whether the law could be manipulated to discriminate against entire groups of people without ever explicitly mentioning race. The big question now, would the Supreme Court step up to defend the rights of the marginalized, or would they allow the government's discriminatory practices to continue unchecked? Their decision would go on to shape civil rights law for generations. Let that sink in for a second, and when we come back, we'll uncover what the court decided and why it mattered so much. In 1886, the United States Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision in Yikwah versus Hopkins. The court ruled in favor of Yikwah, declaring that even though the laundry ordinance was neutral on its face, its discriminatory enforcement violated the Equal Protection Clause. Justice Stanley Matthews, writing for the court, delivered a powerful opinion. He stated, though the law be fair on its face, if it is applied and administered by public authority within an evil eye and an unequal hand, it is still within the prohibition of the Constitution. This was a groundbreaking ruling. It was the first time the Supreme Court had struck down the law because of how it was enforced, not because of how it was written. This decision was a huge victory for Yikwah and for civil rights. It established that laws couldn't be used as tools for discrimination, even if they don't explicitly mention race. This ruling would later become a powerful tool in the fight against Jim Crow laws and other discriminatory practices. The Yikwah decision was a turning point in civil rights law, setting a precedent that would be cited in future cases challenging discriminatory laws. It established that the Equal Protection Clause applied not just to the wording of a law, but to how the law was enforced. In the years that followed, Yikwah became an essential case in the fight against segregation, voter suppression, and other forms of racial discrimination. During the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the principles from this case were used to challenge unjust laws and practices that were supposedly neutral but were clearly designed to oppress minority groups. The impact of Yikwah goes beyond race, too. The idea that the government cannot enforce laws in a discriminatory way has been used in cases involving gender, religion, and sexual orientation. This case continues to shape how we think about equal protection under the law and ensures that the government is held accountable for how laws are applied. Without Yikwah versus Hopkins, the legal framework for civil rights might look very different today. This ruling laid the groundwork for countless victories in the struggle for equality. The story of Yikwah versus Hopkins shows us that even the smallest battles can have far-reaching consequences, which started as one man's fight to keep his laundry open, ended with a ruling that strengthened the legal protections for everyone facing discrimination. This case helped pave the way for the civil rights victories that would follow. Thank you for joining me on this episode of Hidden Vergis. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a comment, and share it with anyone who's passionate about the hidden legal battles that shaped our world. It started with a plane crash. Every man died, even their family searching for answers. But when they asked the government for the truth, they were met with something chilling. Silence. The government claimed it was too dangerous to reveal what really happened. But what if the real danger was the truth itself? In our next episode, we dive into United States vs. Reynolds, a case of a plane crash, government cover-up, and a secret that would change everything. (engine revving) (upbeat music)
