The first known case of a black person refusing to give up their seat on a public transportation vehicle actually happened nearly 100 years before Rosa Parks when Elizabeth Jennings Graham was ordered off a horse drawn streetcar. She refused to get off and was violently removed with the help of the police. Her story was nationally publicized. Jennings eventually sued the driver (future president Chester A. Arthur was her lawyer) and the company who owned the car. She won the suit and was awarded $225 (around $7000 today). Further, the Judge declared: “Colored persons if sober, well behaved, and free from disease, have the same rights as others and could neither be excluded by any rules of the Company, nor by force or violence.” This, along with a few other cases after her where people were similarly treated and won their cases, eventually resulted in the New York public transit system being officially desegregated in 1861.
Posted on: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 18:26:27 +0000
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