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April 4, 1892 | Journal
Our Civil Rights
As African American civil rights are threatened with increasing segregation, a writer for a noted African American publication analyzes the situation.
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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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1900 | Law
An Act to Require Railroad Companies to Provide Separate Cars for White and Colored Passengers
Virginia's separate coach law, approved in January of 1900 and enacted July 1900.
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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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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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May 18, 1896 | Legal decision
Excerpts from Plessy v. Ferguson dissent
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.
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May 18, 1896 | Legal decision
Excerpts from Plessy v. Ferguson 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.
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February 20, 1864 | Letter
Letter from E. Benjamin to Adna Anderson, February 20, 1864
E. Benjamin requests passes for black workers so that they may avoid impressment.
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September 13, 1864 | Letter
Letter from J. M. Nash to Adna Anderson, September 13, 1864
J. M. Nash requests a guard to ensure that the African American engineer at the Lavergne station is not harassed or his work interfered with.
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October 16, 1864 | Letter
Letter from station/road masters to Adna Anderson, October 16, 1864
Labor bosses ask Adna Anderson to pressure the Quarter Master to approve the sale of winter clothing to contrabands.
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March 19, 1841 | Newspaper
Rebuke of the Eastern Railroad Company, for their Treatment of Colored Passengers
Northern railways continued to discriminate against African American passengers and are rebuked in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
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April 2, 1841 | Newspaper
Railroad Corporations
The maltreatment of African Americans by New England rail companies acting as "epidermis-aristocrats" draws an abolitionist's wrath as a Southerner weighs in on the merits of Southern rail travel.
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November 6, 1841 | Newspaper
To The Public
The plight of African Americans and their abolitionist supporters on New England railroads is addressed in depth in this passionate editorial.
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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.
