August 4, 1900 | Newspaper
The restrictions of Jim Crow laws are tested by Virginia's Pamunkey Indians.
1901 | Pamphlet
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.
1892 | Book
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.
1900 | Law
Virginia's separate coach law, approved in January of 1900 and enacted July 1900.
December 31, 1869 | Legal decision
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.
March 31, 1883
The expulsion of an African American preacher from a Georgia rail car draws the ire of Philadelphia citizens.
March 4, 1868
Catharine Brown filed suit against the Washington, Alexandria and Georgetown Railroad in March 1868, arguing that a month earlier she was forcibly and violently ejected from the ladies car in Alexandria, Virginia, because of her color. She sought damages of $20,000 to pay for her medical care and to compensate for the injustice of segregation and discrimination. Brown's original petition focused on the railroad's duty as a common carrier and on Brown's first-class ticket which permitted her to ride in the ladies car.
March 4, 1868 | Legal decision
A brief description of the judgement Catherine Brown hoped for as the jury decided her case.
December 7, 1867 | Illustration
This image from the December 7, 1867 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts Chinese laborers working on the Central Pacific Railroad.
September 11, 1865 | Annual report
This September 11, 1865 circular reports on the condition and financial status of the Southern Railroad Company after the Civil War.
December 23, 1853 | Contract
In December 1853, George A. Farrow and David Hansbrough signed a contract with the Blue Ridge Railroad to provide fifty slaves to assist in the construction of the Blue Ridge railroad tunnel.
December 18, 1888 | Newspaper
The ejection of Reverend H. F. Lee from a Georgia railcar is reported.
November 18, 1873 | Newspaper
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.
April 28, 1870 | Legal decision
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.
May 18, 1896 | Legal decision
These excerpts from the Supreme Court's Plessy v Ferguson decision outline primary points of the seven-man decision that asserted the constitutionality of "separate but equal" facilities.
May 18, 1896 | Legal decision
These excerpts from Justice John Harlan's dissent from the Supreme Court's Plessy v Ferguson decision include scathing counter-arguments to the majority decision that asserted the legality of "separate but equal" facilities.
January 5, 1889 | Newspaper
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.
March 26, 1883 | Newspaper
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.
September 10, 1886 | Newspaper
The plight of three African American passengers on a Georgia railcar is recounted in this reprint from the Macon Telegraph.
1861 | Book
In these excerpts from her memoir, Harriet Jacobs writes of the segregation and prejudice she faced in the North almost immediately after escaping from slavery.