This clearly repudiated the Supreme Court’s notorious 1857 Dred Scott decision, in which Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote that a Black man, even if born free, could not claim rights of citizenship under the federal constitution.
Many of the racist white journalists claimed that he won only because he was black and was therefore possessing an animal-like instinct, which was unfair to the white competitor. They were extremely racist but it was accepted because it was the 30s, way before the civil rights era.
