Elizabeth Jennings: "Nineteenth Century Rosa Parks"

"Nineteenth Century Rosa Parks"

Nearly a century before Rosa Parks was arrested on a Montgomery bus, Elizabeth Jennings ignited a movement to desegregate public transit in New York City. On a Sunday morning in July 1854, Jennings and her friend Sarah E. Adams boarded a “Whites Only” horse-drawn trolley car at the corner of Pearl and Chatham Streets in lower Manhattan on their way to church. In the 1850s, the city’s streetcars were owned and operated by private companies, and many required Black individuals to ride in separate cars.1 New York’s segregated public transportation was a symbolic reminder to Black New Yorkers of their second-class citizenship. Cars designated for nonwhite passengers ran significantly less frequently and, without reliable access to public transportation, Black New Yorkers were forced to walk almost everywhere. This limited their ability to participate in the daily rhythms of the city and to connect with their community.

That morning, the white conductor immediately ordered Jennings and Adams to disembark. When they insisted on their right to ride, the enraged conductor grabbed both women and violently pulled them from the car. When Jennings climbed aboard a second time, the conductor summoned a police officer, who accused Jennings of trying to start a riot and himself dragged her from the car.2

When Black New Yorkers heard of the violence against Jennings, they were outraged. Her letter detailing the incident was read aloud at a mass meeting in church the next day, where a committee was appointed to bring her case before the courts. Jennings was the daughter of Thomas Jennings, a businessman and leader in New York’s Black community.3 Thomas Jennings and several other Black leaders devised a strategy: they would leverage local media to influence public opinion and rally New York’s Black communities to their cause. They lobbied newspapers like the New York Tribune and Frederick Douglass’ Paper to publish the incident from Jenning’s perspective. With an eye towards bringing a high-profile suit against the streetcar company, her father also appealed to Black New Yorkers for monetary aid to pay the legal fees.

In February of 1855, Jennings v. Third Ave. Railroad was heard before the Brooklyn Circuit of the New York State Supreme Court. The court ruled in Jenning’s favor, deciding that it was illegal to forcibly evict her on the basis of her race, and awarded Jennings $225 in damages.4 This was a stunning legal victory for New York’s Black communities, and created a moment for grassroots mobilization and community-building among the city’s Black residents. This victory, however, was quickly tempered with the harsh realities of discrimination. The court’s decision did not lead to an immediate and total desegregation of the city’s streetcar lines, and conductors continued to forcibly remove Black riders. In response to this continued injustice, New York’s Black leaders formed the Legal Rights Association (LRA).5

Launching the Legal Rights Association

The creation of the LRA was a turning point in the nascent Black politics of the urban north in the nineteenth century. It departed from previous community organization strategies by relying on local petitions and public letters, organized civil disobedience, and legal challenges, a strategy which would later serve as a model for future civil rights organizations, such as the NAACP, which was founded in on the Lower East Side of New York City in 1909.6 At weekly meetings, participants gave and heard speeches, discussed the changing conditions of public transit, debated resolutions, and crafted petitions. Moreover, their lawsuits generated courtroom spectacles that ensured segregation would remain in the public eye.

Beyond the LRA, national events continued to impact New York’s Black communities and brought more urgency, as well as inherent danger, to their organizing efforts. Just five years before Jennings was physically removed from a New York streetcar, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act. It was now legal for slave catchers to return escaped slaves residing in free states to their Southern enslavers. This Act placed African American communities in Northern cities in considerable danger, particularly in New York, where a large number of escaped slave refugees lived.7 Moreover, in 1857, just two years after Jennings’ victory, the Supreme Court ruled against Dred Scott in his suit for his freedom. The Court further argued that citizenship rights did not extend to African Americans.8 That same year, New York’s Seneca Village, the first settlement of African American landowners in the city, was razed under the premise of eminent domain to make way for the creation of Central Park.9 As the nation escalated towards civil war, the LRA sought to both protect and rally their community of Black New Yorkers.

The LRA’s activism efforts did not, however, yield a steady, progressive increase in rights. Court action was a useful tool, albeit with mixed results. Many companies continued to operate whites-only cars and expel Black riders. Still, the LRA brought a newfound urgency to New York’s Black communities in their agitation for civil rights. In the process, it provided a site for social bonds and intra-community communication to be strengthened.

Outlawing Public Transit Segregation in New York

In 1861, six years after Jenning’s case was decided in her favor, the LRA finally succeeded in legally overturning segregated streetcar policy in New York. Unfortunately, this victory proved to be more symbolic than reality. Only seven months after the decision, a Black man was again attacked on a Sixth Avenue streetcar by a conductor and a white passenger.10 This incident was a sobering reminder to Black New Yorkers that legal victories did not necessarily translate into public acceptance.

After her trial, Jennings continued her career as a teacher and married Charles Graham in 1860. In 1895 she opened a kindergarten for New York’s Black children, which she operated out of her own home until her death on June 5, 1901.

Citations and Further Reading

1 Kyle G. Volk, Moral Minorities and the Making of American Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 147.

2 Leslie M. Alexander, African or American?: Black Identity and Political Activism in New York City, 1784-1861 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 126.

3 Volk, Moral Minorities, 147.

4 Volk, Moral Minorities, 148.

5 Volk, Moral Minorities, 148.

6 Volk, Moral Minorities, 153.

7 Alexander, African or American?, 122.

8 Alexander, African or American?, 134-5.

9 Alexander, African or American?, 173.

10 Alexander, African or American?, 129-30.