Mr. JUSTICE STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case presents questions concerning the scope of a century-old federal law that permits a defendant in state court proceedings to transfer his case to a federal trial court under certain conditions. That law, now 28 U.S.C. § 1443 (1964 ed.), provides:

"§ 1443. Civil rights cases.

"Any of the following civil actions or criminal prosecutions, commenced in a State court may be removed by the defendant to the district court of the United States for the district and division embracing the place wherein it is pending:

"(1) Against any person who is denied or cannot enforce in the courts of such State a right under any law providing for the equal civil rights of citizens of the United States, or of all persons within the jurisdiction thereof;

"(2) For any act under color of authority derived from any law providing for equal rights, or for refusing to do any act on the ground that it would be inconsistent with such law."

The case arises from a removal petition filed by Thomas Rachel and 19 other defendants seeking to transfer to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia criminal trespass prosecutions pending against them in the Superior Court of Fulton County, Georgia. The petition stated that the defendants had been arrested on various dates in the spring of 1963 when they sought to obtain service at privately owned restaurants open to the general public in Atlanta, Georgia. The defendants alleged:

"their arrests were effected for the sole purpose of aiding, abetting, and perpetuating customs, and usages which have deep historical and psychological roots in the mores and attitudes which exist within the City of Atlanta with respect to serving and seating members of the Negro race in such places of public accommodation and convenience upon a racially discriminatory basis and upon terms and conditions not imposed upon members of the so-called white or Caucasian race. Members of the so-called white or Caucasian race are similarly treated and discriminated against when accompanied by members of the Negro race."

Each defendant, according to the petition, was then indicted under the Georgia statute making it a misdemeanor to refuse to leave the premises of another when requested to do so by the owner or the person in charge. On these allegations, the defendants maintained that removal was authorized under both subsections of 28 U.S.C. § 1443. The defendants maintained broadly that they were entitled to removal under the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically invoking the language of subsection (1), the "denied or cannot enforce" clause, their petition stated:

"petitioners are denied and/or cannot enforce in the Courts of the State of Georgia rights under the Constitution and Laws of the United States providing for the equal rights of citizens of the United States . . . in that, among other things, the State of Georgia by statute, custom, usage, and practice supports and maintains a policy of racial discrimination."

Invoking the language of subsection (2), the "color of authority" clause, the petition stated:

"petitioners are being prosecuted for acts done under color of authority derived from the constitution and laws of the United States and for refusing to do an act which was, and is, inconsistent with the Constitution and Laws of the United States."

On its own motion and without a hearing, the Federal District Court remanded the cases to the Superior Court of Fulton County, Georgia, finding that the petition did not allege facts sufficient to sustain removal under the federal statute. The defendants appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

While the case was pending in that court, two events of critical significance took place. The first of these was the enactment into law by the United States Congress of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 241. The second was the decision of this Court in Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, 379 U.S. 306. That case held that the Act precludes state trespass prosecutions for peaceful attempts to be served upon an equal basis in establishments covered by the Act, even though the prosecutions were instituted prior to the Act's passage. In view of these intervening developments in the law, the Court of Appeals reversed the District Court. In terms of the language of § 1443(1), the court held that, if the allegations in the petition were true, prosecution in the courts of Georgia under that State's trespass statute, substantially similar to the state statutes involved in Hamm, denied the defendants a right under a law providing for equal civil rights — the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The case was therefore returned to the District Court, with directions that the defendants be given an opportunity to prove that their prosecutions had resulted from orders to leave places of public accommodation "for racial reasons." Upon such proof, the court held that Hamm would then require the District Court to order dismissal of the prosecutions. 342 F.2d 336, 343.

We granted certiorari to consider the applicability of the removal statute to the circumstances of this case. 382 U.S. 808. No issues touching the constitutional power of Congress are involved. We deal only with questions of statutory construction.

The present statute is a direct descendant of a provision enacted as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. 14 Stat. 27. The subsection that is now § 1443(1) was before this Court in a series of decisions beginning with Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, and Virginia v. Rives, 100 U.S. 313, in 1880 and ending with Kentucky v. Powers, 201 U.S. 1, in 1906. The Court has not considered the removal statute since then, one reason being that an order remanding a case sought to be removed under § 1443 was not appealable after the year 1887. In § 901 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, however, Congress specifically provided for appeals from remand orders in § 1443 cases, so as to give the federal reviewing courts a new opportunity to consider the meaning and scope of the removal statute. 78 Stat. 266, 28 U.S.C. § 1447 (d) (1964 ed.). The courts of appeals in four circuits have now had occasion to give extensive consideration to various aspects of the removal statute. In the case before us, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit dealt only with issues arising under the first subsection of § 1443, and we confine our review to those issues.

Section 1443(1) entitles the defendants to remove these prosecutions to the federal court only if they meet both requirements of that subsection. They must show both that the right upon which they rely is a "right under any law providing for . . . equal civil rights," and that they are "denied or cannot enforce" that right in the courts of Georgia.

The statutory phrase "any law providing for . . . equal civil rights" did not appear in the original removal provision in the Civil Rights Act of 1866. That provision allowed removal only in cases involving the express statutory rights of racial equality guaranteed in the Act itself. The first section of the 1866 Act secured for all citizens the "same" rights as were "enjoyed by white citizens" in a variety of fundamental areas. Section 3, the removal section of the 1866 Act, provided for removal by "persons who are denied or cannot enforce . . . the rights secured to them by the first section of this act . . . ."

The present language "any law providing for . . . equal civil rights" first appeared in § 641 of the Revised Statutes of 1874. When the Revised Statutes were compiled, the substantive and removal provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 were carried forward in separate sections. Hence, Congress could no longer identify the rights for which removal was available by using the language of the original Civil Rights Act — "rights secured to them by the first section of this act." The new language it chose, however, does not suggest that it intended to limit the scope of removal to rights recognized in statutes existing in 1874. On the contrary, Congress' choice of the open-ended phrase "any law providing for . . . equal civil rights" was clearly appropriate to permit removal in cases involving "a right under" both existing and future statutes that provided for equal civil rights.

There is no substantial indication, however, that the general language of § 641 of the Revised Statutes was intended to expand the kinds of "law" to which the removal section referred. In spite of the potential breadth of the phrase "any law providing for . . . equal civil rights," it seems clear that in enacting § 641, Congress intended in that phrase only to include laws comparable in nature to the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Prior to the 1874 revision, Congress had not significantly enlarged the opportunity for removal available to private persons beyond the relatively narrow category of rights specified in the 1866 Act, even though the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments had been adopted and Congress had broadly implemented them in other major civil rights legislation. Moreover, § 641 contained an explicit cross-reference at the end of the section to § 1977 of the Revised Statutes, which carried forward the principal rights created in § 1 of the 1866 Act. In addition, the note in the margin of § 641 pointed specifically to the removal provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and to §§ 16 and 18 of the Civil Rights Act of 1870. The latter sections were concerned solely with the re-enactment, in somewhat expanded form, of the 1866 Act. Finally, the limitation of § 641 to laws comparable to the Civil Rights Act of 1866 comports with the relatively narrow mandate of the revising commissioners "to revise, simplify, arrange, and consolidate all statutes of the United States, general and permanent in their nature, which shall be in force at the time such commissioners may make the final report of their doings." Act of June 27, 1866, c. 140, 14 Stat. 74. We conclude, therefore, that the model for the phrase "any law providing for . . . equal civil rights" in § 641 was the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

The legislative history of the 1866 Act clearly indicates that Congress intended to protect a limited category of rights, specifically defined in terms of racial equality. As originally proposed in the Senate, § 1 of the bill that became the 1866 Act did not contain the phrase "as is enjoyed by white citizens." That phrase was later added in committee in the House, apparently to emphasize the racial character of the rights being protected. More important, the Senate bill did contain a general provision forbidding "discrimination in civil rights or immunities," preceding the specific enumeration of rights to be included in § 1. Objections were raised in the legislative debates to the breadth of the rights of racial equality that might be encompassed by a prohibition so general as one against "discrimination in civil rights or immunities." There was sharp controversy in the Senate, but the bill passed. After similar controversy in the House, however, an amendment was accepted striking the phrase from the bill.

On the basis of the historical material that is available, we conclude that the phrase "any law providing for . . . equal civil rights" must be construed to mean any law providing for specific civil rights stated in terms of racial equality. Thus, the defendants' broad contentions under the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment cannot support a valid claim for removal under § 1443, because the guarantees of those clauses are phrased in terms of general application available to all persons or citizens, rather than in the specific language of racial equality that § 1443 demands. As the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has concluded, § 1443 "applies only to rights that are granted in terms of equality and not to the whole gamut of constitutional rights . . . ." "When the removal statute speaks of `any law providing for equal rights,' it refers to those laws that are couched in terms of equality, such as the historic and the recent equal rights statutes, as distinguished from laws, of which the due process clause and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 are sufficient examples, that confer equal rights in the sense, vital to our way of life, of bestowing them upon all." New York v. Galamison, 342 F.2d 255, 269, 271. See also Gibson v. Mississippi, 162 U.S. 565, 585-586; Kentucky v. Powers, 201 U.S. 1, 39-40; City of Greenwood v. Peacock, post, p. 825.

But the defendants in the present case did not rely solely on these broad constitutional claims in their removal petition. They also made allegations calling into play the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That Act is clearly a law conferring a specific right of racial equality, for in § 201(a) it guarantees to all the "full and equal enjoyment" of the facilities of any place of public accommodation without discrimination on the ground of race. By that language the Act plainly qualifies as a "law providing for . . . equal civil rights" within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1443 (1).

Moreover, it is clear that the right relied upon as the basis for removal is a "right under" a law providing for equal civil rights. The removal petition may fairly be read to allege that the defendants will be brought to trial solely as the result of peaceful attempts to obtain service at places of public accommodation. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 endows the defendants with a right not to be prosecuted for such conduct. As noted, § 201(a) guarantees to the defendants the equal access they sought. Section 203 then provides that, "No person shall . . . (c) punish or attempt to punish any person for exercising or attempting to exercise any right or privilege secured by section 201 or 202." (Emphasis supplied.) 78 Stat. 244. In Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, 379 U.S. 306, 311, the Court held that this section of the Act "prohibits prosecution of any person for seeking service in a covered establishment, because of his race or color." Hence, if the facts alleged in the petition are true, the defendants not only are immune from conviction under the Georgia trespass statute, but they have a "right under" the Civil Rights Act of 1964 not even to be brought to trial on these charges in the Georgia courts.

The question remaining, then, is whether within the meaning of § 1443(1), the defendants are "denied or cannot enforce" that right "in the courts of" Georgia. That question can be answered only after consideration of the legislative and judicial history of this requirement.

When Congress adopted the first civil rights removal provisions in § 3 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, it incorporated by reference the procedures for removal established in § 5 of the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act of 1863, 12 Stat. 756. The latter section. in turn, permitted removal either at the pre-trial stage of the proceedings in the state court or after final judgment in that court. There can be no doubt that post-judgment removal was a practical remedy for civil rights defendants invoking either the "denied or cannot enforce" clause or the "color of authority" clause of the 1866 removal provision, in order to vindicate rights that had actually been denied at the trial. The scope of pre-trial removal, however, was unclear.

Congress eliminated post-judgment removal when it enacted § 641 of the Revised Statutes of 1874. The compilation of the Revised Statutes coincided with the end of the Reconstruction period. During Reconstruction itself, removal under § 3 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 had been but one measure established by Congress for the enforcement of the numerous statutory rights created under the Civil War Amendments. In other enactments, Congress had taken relatively more drastic steps to enforce those rights. But by the end of the Reconstruction period, many of these measures had expired, and by eliminating post-judgment removal, Congress had substantially truncated the original civil rights removal provision. Pre-trial removal was retained, but the scope of the provision had never been clarified. It was in this historic setting that the Court examined the scope of § 641. In a series of cases commencing with Strauder v. West Virginia, supra, and Virginia v. Rives, supra, decided on the same day in the 1879 Term, the Court established a relatively narrow, well-defined area in which pre-trial removal could be sustained under the "denied or cannot enforce" clause of that section.

In Strauder, the removal petition of a Negro indicted for murder pointed to a West Virginia statute that permitted only white male persons to serve on a grand or petit jury. Since Negroes were excluded from jury service pursuant to that statute, the defendant claimed that the "probabilities" were great that he would suffer a denial of his right to the "full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings in the State of West Virginia. . . ." 100 U.S., at 304. The state court denied removal, however, and the defendant was convicted. This Court held that pre-trial removal should have been granted because, in the language of § 641, it appeared even before trial that the defendant would be denied or could not enforce a right secured to him by a "law providing for . . . equal civil rights." The law specifically invoked by the Court was § 1977 of the Revised Statutes, now 42 U.S.C. § 1981. That law, the Court held, conferred upon the defendant the right to have his jurors selected without discrimination on the ground of race. Because of the direct conflict between the West Virginia statute and § 1977, the Court in Strauder held that the defendant would be the victim of "a denial by the statute law of the State." 100 U.S., at 312.

In Virginia v. Rives, however, the defendants could point to no such state statute as the basis for removal. Their petition alleged that strong community racial prejudice existed against them, that the grand and petit jurors summoned to try them were all white, that Negroes had never been allowed to serve on county juries in cases in which a Negro was involved in any way, and that the judge, the prosecutor, and the assistant prosecutor had all rejected their request that Negroes be included in the petit jury. Hence, the defendants maintained, they could not obtain a fair trial in the state court. But the only relevant Virginia statute to which the petition referred imposed jury duty on all males within a certain age range. Thus, the law of Virginia did not, on its face, sanction the discrimination of which the defendants complained. This Court held that the petition stated no ground for removal. Critical to its holding was the Court's observation that § 641 of the Revised Statutes authorized only pre-trial removal. The Court concluded:

"the denial or inability to enforce in the judicial tribunals of a State, rights secured to a defendant by any law providing for . . . equal civil rights . . . of which sect. 641 speaks, is primarily, if not exclusively, a denial of such rights, or an inability to enforce them, resulting from the Constitution or laws of the State, rather than a denial first made manifest at the trial of the case. In other words, the statute has reference to a legislative denial or an inability resulting from it. Many such cases of denial might have been apprehended, and some existed. Colored men might have been, as they had been, denied a trial by jury. They might have been excluded by law from any jury summoned to try persons of their race, or the law might have denied to them the testimony of colored men in their favor, or process for summoning witnesses. . . . In all such cases a defendant can affirm, on oath, before trial, that he is denied the equal protection of the laws or equality of civil rights. But in the absence of constitutional or legislative impediments he cannot swear before his case comes to trial that his enjoyment of all his civil rights is denied to him. When he has only an apprehension that such rights will be withheld from him when his case shall come to trial, he cannot affirm that they are actually denied, or that he cannot enforce them. Yet such an affirmation is essential to his right to remove his case. By the express requirement of the statute his petition must set forth the facts upon which he bases his claim to have his case removed, and not merely his belief that he cannot enforce his rights at a subsequent stage of the proceedings. The statute was not, therefore, intended as a corrective of errors or wrongs committed by judicial tribunals in the administration of the law at the trial." 100 U.S., at 319-320.

The Court acknowledged that even though Virginia's statute did not authorize discrimination in jury selection, the officer in charge of the selection might nevertheless bring it about.

"But when a subordinate officer of the State, in violation of State law, undertakes to deprive an accused party of a right which the statute law accords to him, as in the case at bar, it can hardly be said that he is denied, or cannot enforce, "in the judicial tribunals of the State' the rights which belong to him. In such a case it ought to be presumed the court will redress the wrong." 100 U.S., at 321-322.

The Court distinguished the situation in Strauder:

"It is to be observed that [§ 641] gives the right of removal only to a person `who is denied, or cannot enforce, in the judicial tribunals of the State his equal civil rights.' And this is to appear before trial. When a statute of the State denies his right, or interposes a bar to his enforcing it, in the judicial tribunals, the presumption is fair that they will be controlled by it in their decisions; and in such a case a defendant may affirm on oath what is necessary for a removal. Such a case is clearly within the provisions of sect. 641." 100 U.S., at 321. (Emphasis in original.)

The doctrine announced in Strauder and Rives was amplified in Neal v. Delaware, 103 U.S. 370, and Bush v. Kentucky, 107 U.S. 110. In both cases, the Court reversed convictions on the ground that jury selection had been conducted pursuant to a policy of racial discrimination. Yet in both cases the Court also held that a pre-trial removal petition alleging such discrimination stated no ground for removal. In Neal the petition relied upon a Delaware constitutional provision, adopted prior to the advent of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, that purportedly sanctioned discriminatory jury selection. But the Delaware court in which the petition had been filed held that the subsequent Amendments rendered the state provision void. Hence, unlike Strauder, the Neal case involved no law of the State upon which to found a suitable prediction that rights of equality would be denied in the courts of the State. In Bush, the petition relied upon a Kentucky jury exclusion statute drawn along racial lines that had been enacted after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. But prior to Bush's trial, the Kentucky Court of Appeals had held, in another case, that the statute was unconstitutional. This Court noted that the judicial declaration was binding upon all inferior Kentucky courts and concluded that, "After that decision, so long as it was unmodified, it could not have been properly said in advance of a trial that the defendant in a criminal prosecution was denied or could not enforce in the judicial tribunals of Kentucky the rights secured to him by any law providing for . . . equal civil rights . . . ." 107 U.S., at 116. In both Neal and Bush, then, the Court held that in the absence of a presently effective state law authorizing the predicted denial, the state court was the proper forum for the resolution of the claims that rights of equality would be denied, even though, as the Court also held, the state courts had ultimately failed to correct the denials that in fact took place at the defendants' trials in those two cases.

Four subsequent decisions, also involving claims of racial discrimination in jury selection, reiterated the principles announced in Strauder and Rives, and amplified in Neal and Bush. The final removal case decided by this Court was Kentucky v. Powers, 201 U.S. 1. In that case, which involved alleged discrimination on a political basis, the defendant was about to undergo his fourth trial, having been successful on appeal after three prior verdicts of guilty. He could therefore enhance his prediction that rights would be denied by pointing to instances of illegality in the three prior proceedings against him. But the petition for removal resembled those in the cases that followed Strauder in that it pointed to no state enactment that authorized the predicted denial. Accordingly, restating the Strauder-Rives doctrine, this Court held that no case for removal had been made out.

In the line of cases from Strauder to Powers, the Court interpreted § 641 of the Revised Statutes of 1874. That statute has come down to us, in modified form, as § 1443. But in its first subsection, the present removal statute still requires that a petitioner be one who "is denied or cannot enforce in the courts of" a State the rights he seeks to vindicate by removing the case to federal court. There is no suggestion that the modifications in the statute since 1874 were intended to effect any change in substance. Hence, for the purposes of the present case, we are dealing with the same statute that confronted the Court in the cases interpreting § 641.

The Strauder-Rives doctrine, as consistently applied in all these cases, required a removal petition to allege, not merely that rights of equality would be denied or could not be enforced, but that the denial would take place in the courts of the State. The doctrine also required that the denial be manifest in a formal expression of state law. This requirement served two ends. It ensured that removal would be available only in cases where the predicted denial appeared with relative clarity prior to trial. It also ensured that the task of prediction would not involve a detailed analysis by a federal judge of the likely disposition of particular federal claims by particular state courts. That task not only would have been difficult, but it also would have involved federal judges in the unseemly process of prejudging their brethren of the state courts. Thus, the Court in Strauder and Rives concluded that a state enactment, discriminatory on its face, so clearly authorized discrimination that it could be taken as a suitable indication that all courts in that State would disregard the federal right of equality with which the state enactment was precisely in conflict.

In Rives itself, however, the Court noted that the denial of which the removal provision speaks "is primarily, if not exclusively, a denial . . . resulting from the Constitution or laws of the State . . . ." 100 U.S., at 319. (Emphasis supplied.) This statement was reaffirmed in Gibson v. Mississippi, 162 U.S. 565, 581. The Court thereby gave some indication that removal might be justified, even in the absence of a discriminatory state enactment, if an equivalent basis could be shown for an equally firm prediction that the defendant would be "denied or cannot enforce" the specified federal rights in the state court. Such a basis for prediction exists in the present case.

In the narrow circumstances of this case, any proceedings in the courts of the State will constitute a denial of the rights conferred by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as construed in Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, if the allegations of the removal petition are true. The removal petition alleges, in effect, that the defendants refused to leave facilities of public accommodation, when ordered to do so solely for racial reasons, and that they are charged under a Georgia trespass statute that makes it a criminal offense to refuse to obey such an order. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, however, as Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, 379 U.S. 306, made clear, protects those who refuse to obey such an order not only from conviction in state courts, but from prosecution in those courts. Hamm emphasized the precise terms of § 203(c) that prohibit any "attempt to punish" persons for exercising rights of equality conferred upon them by the Act. The explicit terms of that section compelled the conclusion that "nonforcible attempts to gain admittance to or remain in establishments covered by the Act, are immunized from prosecution . . . ." 379 U.S., at 311. The 1964 Act therefore "substitutes a right for a crime." 379 U.S., at 314. Hence, if as alleged in the present removal petition, the defendants were asked to leave solely for racial reasons, then the mere pendency of the prosecutions enables the federal court to make the clear prediction that the defendants will be "denied or cannot enforce in the courts of [the] State" the right to be free of any "attempt to punish" them for protected activity. It is no answer in these circumstances that the defendants might eventually prevail in the state court. The burden of having to defend the prosecutions is itself the denial of a right explicitly conferred by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as construed in Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, supra.

Since the Federal District Court remanded the present case without a hearing, the defendants as yet have had no opportunity to establish that they were ordered to leave the restaurant facilities solely for racial reasons. If the Federal District Court finds that allegation true, the defendants' right to removal under § 1443(1) will be clear. The Strauder-Rives doctrine requires no more, for the denial in the courts of the State then clearly appears without any detailed analysis of the likely behavior of any particular state court. Upon such a finding it will be apparent that the conduct of the defendants is "immunized from prosecution" in any court, and the Federal District Court must then sustain the removal and dismiss the prosecutions.

For these reasons, the judgment is

Affirmed.

[For Appendix to opinion of the Court, see facing page.]