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March 4, 1868 | Legal decision
Catharine Brown, Plaintiff's Prayers
A brief description of the judgement Catherine Brown hoped for as the jury decided her case.
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May 29, 1869 | Illustration
Work on the Last Mile of the Pacific Railroad—Mingling of European with Asiatic Laborers
This image from the May 29, 1869 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts laborers of both European and Asian descent working on the final mile of the Pacific Railroad.
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June 12, 1869 | Illustration
Pacific Railroad Complete
This image from the June 12, 1869 issue of Harper's Weekly presents a satirical look at race and the completion of the Union Pacific railroad.
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December 31, 1869 | Legal decision
Seth E. Beedy Deposition
Catharine Brown's attorneys deposed two white men who were on the train with Brown and witnessed her expulsion from the cars in Alexandria. Both lived in Maine and were deposed in December 1869. Seth Beedy was traveling with Benjamin Hinds, who knew and recognized "Kate" Brown. Beedy testified, "she was ejected by violence and that alone."
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December 31, 1869 | Legal decision
Benjamin H. Hinds Deposition
Catharine Brown's attorneys deposed two white men who were on the train with Brown and witnessed her expulsion from the cars in Alexandria. Both lived in Maine and were deposed in December 1869. Benjamin Hinds' testimony was particularly significant because he described in detail the violence he witnessed, and because he knew Brown "since January 1866," perhaps from her work in the U.S. Capitol, and tried to intervene on her behalf.
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April 28, 1870 | Legal decision
Draft of Catharine Brown, Evidence Given
Catharine Brown's case--Case No. 4582--was scheduled to go to trial in October 1868 in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, but was delayed because of various procedural motions by the railroad's attorneys. When these motions were denied, the case was tried over three days in March 1870. The all white jury rendered a verdict of guilty against the railroad company and awarded Brown $1,500 in damages. Then, the defendant railroad attorney's sought an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Here is their statement of argument, denying that the railroad used violence or made derogatory remarks. Furthermore, in denying Brown's claims, the railroad argued that there were distinctions between through and local passenger types of service, even on the Baltimore and Ohio, and that separate colored cars on local lines were run at the request of black passengers.
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1873 | Legal decision
Railroad Company v. Brown, 84 U.S. 17 Wall. 445 445 (1873)
In 1868, Catherine Brown, an African American woman, was ejected from the "ladies car" on the Washington, Alexandria, and Georgetown Railroad Company when traveling from Alexandria, Virginia, to the District of Columbia. Brown sued the rail company and the case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court - the first case addressing race and public transportation to appear before the Court. Although the legal status of the railroad under Congressional rulings that had applied to earlier iterations of the company became a basis for appeal, the rights of African Americans became the most notable outcome of the Supreme Court's decision for Brown in 1873.
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November 18, 1873 | Newspaper
DISCRIMINATION ON ACCOUNT OF COLOR ON RAILROADS
The New York Times reported on its front page the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Catharine Brown's case. The case aroused Republicans to reconsider the intent and purpose of the Congress in the midst of the Civil War because it turned on the railroad's Congressional charter from 1863 which clearly barred any discrimination on the basis of race or color. The railroad's main argument before the Supreme Court rested first on the idea that separate cars were customary, locally sanctioned, and equally accommodated, and second on the specious reasoning that because they carried colored passengers they had not violated the Congressional charter--colored persons were carried, just in a different car. The spirit of the Congress in 1863, the Court decided, suggested otherwise. The decision, however significant and newsworthy, was sorely limited in its application. Only a handful of railroads in the District of Columbia possessed such language in their originating charters.
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May 20, 1875 | Newspaper
Untitled [Grand Jury of the United States District Court Harrisonburg, Va., has found a bill of indictment]
The United States District Court at Harrisionburg, Virginia, hands down an indictment against the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad for the ejection of Annie Smith.
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April 21, 1877 | Newspaper
OUTRAGE IN ALABAMA
The ejection of a party of Alabama African American men and women from a first class car on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad is recounted in this letter from William Jenkins of Tuskeegee, Alabama.
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March 26, 1883 | Newspaper
Georgia Letter
The plight of middle- and upper-class African Americans on Georgia railways and in public accommodations is briefly addressed in this report from Savannah, Georgia.
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March 31, 1883
Bishop Campbell's Indignity
The expulsion of an African American preacher from a Georgia rail car draws the ire of Philadelphia citizens.
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September 29, 1883 | 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."
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September 10, 1886 | 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.
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December 24, 1887 | 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.
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December 18, 1888 | Newspaper
Couldn't Ride on the Sleeper
The ejection of Reverend H. F. Lee from a Georgia railcar is reported.
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January 5, 1889 | 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.
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1890 | Law
The Louisiana Railway Accommodations Act
The Louisiana Railway Accommodations Act mandates "equal but separate" rail travel in the state.
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September 3, 1891 | 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.
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1892 | Book
A Voice From the South: By A Woman of the South
Anna J. Cooper, the first African American woman to earn a PhD, worked as a speaker, educator, and reformer. In this excerpt from Voice From the South Cooper addresses the contrast between the expectations of any middle-class, well-dressed woman traveling and the realities of the experience for African American women. Read with Richard Wells' Manners, Culture and Dress of the Best American Society, also featured on this site.
