Well before Rosa Parks, Elizabeth Jennings Graham also refused to give up her seat on public transportation that was denied her due to her skin color. The actions of the free African American school teacher, also known as the “Nineteenth-Century Rosa Parks” would lead to the desegregation of the New York City streetcar system.
Graham was born in 1827 to prominent middle-class African American parents Thomas Jennings and Elizabeth Cartwright. Graham’s father was a successful tailor. In 1821, he was awarded a patent for developing a new dry cleaning method.
Six years later, Jennings earned enough money to pay to free his wife, who was born a slave. Graham’s mother became an active member of the Ladies Literary Society of New York. At 10 years old, Graham read “On the Improvement of the Mind,” which her mother wrote to motivate fellow African American women to take action.
Jennings belonged to a number of churches and social groups, and he was one of the founders of the Abyssinian Baptist Church. Following in her father’s footsteps, Graham became highly involved with the church.
Refusing to Leave
These private companies could choose whether or not to allow African American riders. Very few cars had signs that read, “Colored Persons Allowed,” meaning that most African Americans were expected to walk.On one hot Sunday morning in 1854, Graham and her good friend Sarah Adams were waiting for a bus on a street corner to catch a ride to church. Since they were running late, Graham opted to jump on a street car that did not have a sign saying it allowed African Americans.
At first, the conductor tried to say the car was full. Then the conductor said that the two could stay on the car unless a white rider objected.
She held on tight to the window, forcing the conductor to get the help of the car’s driver. The two men dragged Graham off the car crushing her bonnet and soiling her dress. Her friend was now on the curb yelling to the driver and conductor that they were going to kill her.
Aftermath
The next day, other outraged African Americans in the city held a big rally in her support. Frederick Douglass published an article of the incident that garnered national attention from people as far away as San Francisco.Jennings then hired 24-year-old lawyer Chester Arthur who had just passed the bar exam two months prior to represent his daughter in a lawsuit against the streetcar company, the driver, and the conductor. Arthur would go on to become President James Garfield’s Vice President and then the 21st President of the United States after Garfield was assassinated.
In 1855, a jury of all white men ruled in Graham’s favor and awarded her $225. “Colored persons if sober, well behaved and free from disease, had the same rights as others and could neither be excluded by any rules of the Company, nor by force or violence,” stated Brooklyn [Circuit Court] Judge William Rockwell.
Although her case would set a legal precedence, the street cars were not desegregated right away. In fact, it would take another five years for full desegregation of the city’s public transportation system.
