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  • | Photograph

    A Manicure on the "Modern Train"

    This image from The Modern Railroad (1911) captures a white, female passenger receiving a manicure from an African-American woman while aboard the railroad.

  • | Photograph

    Boxcars with Refugees at Railroad, Atlanta, Ga., 1864

    With the capture of Atlanta, General William T. Sherman?s army seized an important rail hub for the Confederacy. This image of refugees and African Americans, sitting on rail cars with their possessions, indicates the massive displacement that came with the war.

  • | Photograph

    No. 1. Steam engines "Telegraph" and "O. A. Bull," Atlanta, Ga., 1864

    No. 1. Steam engines ?Telegraph? and ?O. A. Bull? remained in position amid the ruins of a Confederate roundhouse in Atlanta in 1864. The South possessed some of the most beautiful depots and railroad facilities in the nation in 1861. Sherman?s campaigns sought to dismantle the Confederate railroad system and in so doing deny any claim to modernity and progress. African American workers stand atop the old Georgia Railroad flatcar.

  • | Photograph

    Railroad construction workers hammer track as a third watches

    African American laborers, free and contraband, worked for the Union Army to build and repair rail lines across the South. Note the bent and broken rails scattered in the background, signs of earlier destruction.

  • | Photograph

    African American Laborers on the U.S. Military Railroad in Northern Virginia, c. 1862 or 1863

    From the beginning of the Civil War, African Americans worked on the railroads, transferring their labor to the Union cause.

  • | Photograph

    Contrabands at Cumberland Landing, Virginia, May 1862

    In the Peninsular Campaign, Federal forces encountered thousands former slaves who sought freedom and work in the Union army camps. Even if slaves fled slavery, their status was unclear in the first year of the war. In July 1862 Congress declared such refugees from slavery ?forever and henceforth free.?

  • | Photograph

    Barricades at Alexandria, Virginia.

  • | Photograph

    Slave pen of Price, Birch & Co., Alexandria, VA: ca. 1860 - ca. 1865

    A Matthew Brady image of the slave pen of Price, Birch & Co., Alexandria, Virginia.

  • | Photograph

    African American wood choppers? hut on the Orange & Alexandria Railroad

    African American wood choppers? hut on the Orange & Alexandria Railroad. Black men, many of them formerly enslaved on the South?s railroads, chopped timber for railroad ties, bridges, and fuel for the U.S. Military Railroads. Stationed at remote camps, such as this, they also faced the constant danger of Confederate partisan and guerrilla raids.

  • | Pamphlet

    A Republican Text-Book for Colored Voters

    Meant as a primer for African American voters, this short volume includes a brief interview with William Jennings Bryan, followed by a comment on Jim Crow cars.

  • | Newspaper

    "Jim Crow" Law To Be Tested

    The restrictions of Jim Crow laws are tested by Virginia's Pamunkey Indians.

  • | Newspaper

    Race Problem on Railroads

    North Carolina plans for Jim Crow cars draw attention.

  • | Newspaper

    Fight on Class Law

    The Anti-Separate Coach Committee of Kentucky begins to lobby against the Jim Crow laws recently passed by the state legislature.

  • | Newspaper

    Rights of Negroes

    The decision for Maime Caldwell in her case against the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad Company for discrimination is briefly recounted, noting the final award of $800.

  • | Newspaper

    Untitled [Through the action of the separate coach law]

    A reponse from the Southern Pacific following an Interstate Commerce Commission ruling that African Americans making trips crossing state lines could not be ejected from first-class cars.

  • | Newspaper

    FACTS FROM GEORGIA

    A correspondent of the New York Age reports on an Atlanta Evening Journal article recounting the expulsion of Reverend T. H. Lee from a Georgia Railroad Company coach.

  • | Newspaper

    Couldn't Ride on the Sleeper

    The ejection of Reverend H. F. Lee from a Georgia railcar is reported.

  • | Newspaper

    Rev. Mr. Heard's Railroad Case

    The case of Rev. William Heard versus the Georgia Railroad Company is heard before the Interstate Commerce Commission.

  • | Newspaper

    In The First-Class Car

    The plight of three African American passengers on a Georgia railcar is recounted in this reprint from the Macon Telegraph.

  • | Newspaper

    Untitled [The railroads of Texas have been harassed]

    A brief editorial statement about the conditions on Texas railroads and the lack of equal accomodations for African Americans and the need for a continued struggle against "American intolerance."