WASHINGTON -- The Helena-West Helena Courthouse complex has been renamed for an Arkansas federal judge whose rulings in two cases shaped the debate about civil rights in the United States for decades.
President Barack Obama late Wednesday signed legislation renaming the federal complex at 617 Walnut St. in Helena-West Helena as the Jacob Trieber Federal Building, United States Post Office and United States Court House.
A renaming ceremony is being planned, and it needs to focus on Trieber's historic significance, U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., said. Crawford and the rest of the Arkansas's U.S. delegation sponsored the legislation.
"It's a story that needs to be told, and we don't need to just gloss over -- 'here's another post office, federal building whatever that we've named, here's a cookie and a glass of juice, have a nice day.' I really think there needs to be a lot of attention paid to this significance of this being named in his honor," Crawford said.
Trieber was the first Jewish man ever appointed as a federal judge, serving the Eastern District of Arkansas from 1900 until his death in 1927. His 1903 ruling that the Constitution protects the right to work was a new interpretation of the 13th Amendment, historians and legal scholars said.
The U.S. Supreme Court first struck down his opinion, but decades later repudiated that ruling and endorsed Trieber's view that all citizens have the right to enter into contracts, such as work, under the 13th Amendment.
The 13th Amendment was ratified in 1865 to protect the rights of newly freed slaves.
A renaming ceremony is being organized by local officials, and by representatives of the U.S. District Court and the U.S. General Services Administration.
Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Miller, among Arkansans who pushed for the renaming, said the ceremony may wait until May or April.
"We want to set a time that is good for not only the court, but good for the national groups that may be interested in it. We'd like for everybody who wants to participate to participate," Miller said.
He said Phillips County is revving up to celebrate the "giant in the profession."
"There's a lot of pride in somebody taking some of the positions he took at the time that he took them," Miller said. "Much of what we hear coming out of the area, when it makes news, is negative. There are so many positive things and positive people who've come from here. Something positive from here is getting noticed, and that is good for all of us."
Local groups and museums are proposing events to be held in connection with the naming ceremony.
"If people don't know who Jacob Trieber is before we have our dedication, they definitely will know who he is after," Miller said.
David Soloman, a distant cousin of Trieber's, said the community plans to contact the judge's relatives, and some national Jewish organizations have said they'd like to participate in the ceremony.
Soloman said he'd also like the ceremony to include education for local high school students.
"Jacob Trieber is about race relations at the turn of the century," Soloman said. "It's a good opportunity, not simply to dedicate the courthouse, but to do a little education about the relevance of the dim, dark past -- from these kids' point of view -- to today."
Born in Prussia (part of the former German Empire) in 1853, Trieber moved with his parents to St. Louis in 1866 before moving to Helena in 1868, according to the Arkansas History Commission. Trieber studied law and was admitted to the Arkansas Bar in 1876. He practiced law in Helena and was active in Republican politics, serving on the Helena City Council and as the Phillips County treasurer. Trieber helped save the Old State House in Little Rock and establish the Arkansas Tuberculosis Sanatorium.
He was appointed U.S. attorney for the Eastern District in 1897 and then was appointed by President William McKinley to the federal bench in Little Rock in 1900.
Trieber is best known for two 1903 rulings involving the "whitecappers," a group similar to the Ku Klux Klan. In United States v. Hodges, 15 whitecappers pressured companies to fire black workers from a sawmill in Poinsett County. United States v. Morris involved whitecappers terrorizing white landowners who employed black workers in Cross County.
In 1906, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Trieber's decision in the Hodges case, stating that the 13th Amendment didn't protect the right to earn a living. For decades, the decision was used to keep the federal government from intervening when racial discrimination occurred.
Eventually, in 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that decision in a footnote of Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., a case dealing with equal access to housing.
U.S. Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., said the whole state should recognize Trieber's contributions.
"I hope this is going to be a big event in Arkansas, so that we can remember a guy that truly was an outstanding individual and way ahead of his time," Boozman said.
Metro on 10/11/2015