HELENA-WEST HELENA -- Jacob Trieber, the first Jewish judge in the U.S. to ever serve on the federal bench, was honored Friday for his years of service as the district judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas from 1901 to 1927.
Nearly 90 years after his death, Trieber's name was engraved in the stone wall of the Helena-West Helena federal building, which was renamed the Jacob Trieber Federal Building.
Trieber arrived in Helena in 1868 as a teenager after escaping anti-Semitism in his native Prussia. He made his foray into the post-Civil War territory not long after Union troops issued an edict vowing freedom to any black person that arrived in Helena, Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Miller said.
"He's seeing these freed blacks who are trying to make their way in this world, he is seeing other immigrants come to this town trying to make their way in this world. And y'all, that's a combustible mix," Miller said.
After an active civil life, Trieber became a judge at the height of segregation under Jim Crow laws. But his experience of ethnic persecution and overcoming early 20th-century prejudice lent him to a progressive, more inclusive reading of the U.S. Constitution.
"We live in a time when great institutions, such as Yale and Princeton, are forced to re-examine the naming of buildings for men who failed in their actions to rise above the prevailing prejudices of their time," said Rayman Solomon, a legal historian at Rutgers Law School, a Helena native and a distant relative of Trieber's. "Such was not the career and legacy of Trieber. He was remarkable for his ability to render justice to all people when that was not popular."
Arkansas judges, state leaders, and Helena natives gathered Friday in the courtroom presided over by Miller to present the congressional bill passed in October approving the renaming of the federal building. It was a bill that sailed through Congress with bipartisan support and with what U.S. Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., called a rare celerity.
"Trieber paved the way for diversity on the federal bench, sought equal justice for all people," Boozman said Friday. "His decision on the bench helped fight injustice and laid the foundation for equality with a lasting civil legacy that continues to impact our country."
According to Solomon, Trieber's interpretation of the 13th Amendment -- whereby Congress is imbued with the authority to outlaw public and private actions inhibiting the basic freedoms of former slaves and their descendants -- was not shared by any other court until 1968.
Trieber also issued a writ of habeas corpus and stayed the execution of five black men sentenced to death after the Elaine Race Riot in 1919. Those defendants were later spared capital punishment after a hearing.
The opinions he wrote from the bench were some of the many underpinnings for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., said.
"The lingering question that I have now is, who is going to play him in the movie? Because certainly this man warrants that kind of consideration," Crawford said. "There needs to be more done to share the story of this man's life. He is the embodiment of the American dream."
In 2007, the late U.S. District Judge George Howard Jr. was honored by the renaming of a federal building and courthouse in his hometown of Pine Bluff. Appointed in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter, he was the first black Arkansan appointed to federal judgeship. During his career, he presided over the Whitewater trial of then-Gov. Jim Guy Tucker and James and Susan McDougal.
Boozman said that chronicling these figures of history in concrete objects -- in the naming of buildings or founding of memorials -- ensures that such role models are firmly rooted in the collective memory.
"I want things named after people so that when a school child looks up and says, 'Who's Jacob Trieber?' the parent can give the story -- this was a guy that exemplified what justice was about," he said.
Metro on 05/21/2016