|
Article by Andre Nieto Jaime  The Negro Motorist Green-book An annual guidebook for African-American travelers 1946 Library of Congress (2016298176) The infamous Supreme Court ruling in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1898 had profound effects throughout the country, including in Maryland. The ruling effectively made segregation legal with the “separate but equal” clause and from there, segregation laws became common place in the United States. Maryland passed its own Jim Crow laws, some of which segregated transportation within the state. In 1902 a bill was introduced that, if passed, would have made segregated transportation mandatory. African American leaders quickly stood up against this bill and were joined by railroad and steamship companies, mostly out of economic interest, to defeat the bill. However, this victory was short-lived and two years later a bill requiring segregation on railways and steamships was passed.1 Despite this, Black residents of Maryland, many from the Eastern Shore, were steadfast in their opposition to Jim Crow and pushed back against the law through boycotts, pressuring politicians to support a repeal, expressing their disapproval to the press, and challenging the law in court, all for over 40 years until the law was finally repealed in 1951. In 1904 the Maryland General Assembly passed what was dubbed the “Kerbin Act,” named after the bill’s sponsor William G. Kerbin of Worcester County. This law required companies “operating cars or coaches by steam” on railroads within Maryland to provide separate cars for White and Black passengers. Partitions within cars with doors were allowed to be used in place of separate cars, presumably to assuage the previous economic concerns of railroad companies of increased operating costs from additional cars. These separate cars and spaces, dubbed Jim Crow cars, had to be “without any difference or discrimination in quality or of convenience or accommodations” to conform to the separate but equal doctrine established by the Supreme Court. In addition, this act gave conductors the power to segregate passengers. Railroad companies, conductors, and passengers, failing to adhere to these new requirements faced fines and misdemeanors. Similar stipulations were made for steamboats with the same emphasis on separate, but equal accommodations for White and Black passengers. Yet, despite the claim that accommodations were to be no different in quality or convenience, segregated transportation was inherently inconvenient for people of color who were often forced to move upon reaching Maryland’s border. This forced movement and being at the mercy of conductors was humiliating for Black passengers and the conditions in these separate compartments were far from equal. This discriminatory act was quickly met with a boycott of railways with the Maryland Suffrage League and the Afro-American Ledger organizing resistance. However, this effort only lasted 8 months. This boycott, meant to put the railroad companies in an economic choke hold, ironically put a financial strain on the Black community via their churches. Many churches depended on rebates offered by railroad companies for chartering their cars for meetings, but participating in the boycott meant that they were unable to claim these rebates and the community caved. However, other methods of resistance were still possible.  The Railroad Lost Money: Are Several Hundreds of Dollars Out on Account of Jimcrow Law. The Baltimore Afro-American 1904 Western Maryland's Historical Library (ItemID acaa482) Complaints about the conditions of Jim Crow cars quickly emerged and in 1910 the Public Service Commission (PSC) was established with several responsibilities, one of which was to listen to complaints related to service on rail cars and steam ships. W. Ashbie Hawkins, one of Baltimore’s first Black lawyers, represented several plaintiffs before and after the PSC was established. One of these was Professor Thomas W. Turner who, in 1912, went on a trip to Salisbury with his wife to celebrate Thanksgiving. On the way, and especially on the return trip, the poor conditions prompted Turner to write a letter to the PSC expressing his disdain In his letter Turner criticizes the Baltimore, Atlantic, and Chesapeake Railroad (BCAR) for subjecting Black passengers to filthy conditions including dirty toilets, proximity to the smoking area of the train, and seemingly months of dirt piling up in the colored sections. This complaint escalated to a hearing with the PSC where Hawkins claimed that the 1904 Jim Crow law was violated due to unequal conditions. After investigating, the PSC sided with Turner and Hawkins, ordering steamboat and railroad companies to provide equal accommodations for passengers of both colors. However, this was a shallow victory as the order did nothing but reiterate the separate but equal stipulation of the 1904 law. Additionally, neither party went as far as directly challenging the Jim Crow transportation law.
Seeing that the PSC was of little help, the Black community sent their grievances directly to the Maryland General Assembly through the Maryland Interracial Commission, which was formed by the Maryland General Assembly in 1927. Activist groups also emerged, such as the Citizen’s Jim Crow Repeal Committee and the Independent Voters Political Welfare Club of Maryland, to voice their resentment of the Jim Crow car law and worked to convince elected officials that the law needed to be repealed. In 1933 the Citizen’s Jim Crow Repeal Committee reached out to Senator David J. Ward from Salisbury asking him to support the upcoming repeal measure. However, Ward refused, saying that it was “absolutely against my wishes” and that Eastern Shore Citizens, both Black and White, did not want the 1904 law repealed and that both races were content with Jim Crow. Despite admitting to be acting according to his own personal wishes, Ward asserted that the Eastern Shore did not want a repeal of the law and that everyone was happy with the status quo. Senator Dudley G. Roe of Sudlersville also refused to vote for a repeal of the law, but was willing to reconsider if provided with evidence of unequal accommodations, which the community had been providing for years. Black leaders were quick to denounce Ward’s claim and called upon the community to write letters supporting the repeal of the law. James Franklin Stewart, a prominent figure from Salisbury’s Georgetown Community and part of the Maryland Interracial Commission, made a statement which was published in the Baltimore Afro-American a week after Ward’s statement. In his statement Stewart refuted Ward’s claim that the Eastern Shore did not want a repeal of the Jim Crow car law. Stewart found it insulting that Ward made such a statement without first consulting with the very people the law had the most effect on. He also took offense that anyone believed that African Americans were willingly subjecting themselves to such a law. Claiming to speak on behalf of the Black residents of the Eastern Shore, he notes that “As an Eastern Shoreman and native of Wicomico County, I can never give sanction or encouragement to a law” which humiliates an entire group of people. Stewart concluded his statement by labeling the Jim Crow law a “curse to our racial group” and suggests Ward reconsider his stance on the repeal. Stewart was not the only Black Eastern Shore leader to speak out against Ward. Thomas H. Kiah, the principal of Princess Anne Academy (today the University of Maryland Eastern Shore), also expressed Black resentment of the 1904 law and lamented Ward’s response. With these statements, Stewart and Kiah made it very clear that the Eastern Shore was not content with the degrading laws that made Maryland’s Black citizens feel like second-class citizens.
Moving forward over a decade to 1945, the now 41-year-old law was still being debated in the Maryland General Assembly and Black civil rights groups were still hard at work challenging it. In a newspaper from March of 1945, it was noted that Maryland’s senate voted 20 to 9 in favor of a repeal and that even the governor at the time, Herbert R. O'Conor, endorsed the repeal bill. In an effort to get the bill to pass the House of Delegates, 17 speeches were made before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Delegates in which representatives, both White and Black, from various organizations as well as individuals urged for the repeal of the Jim Crow transportation law. A few of these speakers hailed from our Eastern Shore, including Elwood Jewett, son of Frederick Jewett, and Salisbury’s James Stewart, who was still fighting for equal rights on behalf of his community. All of these speeches emphasized the need to repeal the Jim Crow law in order to make Maryland more democratic, ease racial tensions, and end the humiliation that many felt from the law. One speaker, Mrs. H. Milton Wagner, claimed to speak on behalf of the mothers who have children fighting in the ongoing global war and that her son “has carried and buried men of every race in the battles... I can’t believe that he or others like him want to see more seeds of hatred in Maryland than they have given their lives for”. Wagner’s powerful declaration uses World War II, which was ongoing at the time, to support the argument for repeal. Her son was actively fighting against a regime based upon racial and ethnic discrimination. Wagner’s son burying men of every race demonstrates that skin color does not matter in death and it also highlights the hypocrisy of the United States fighting against hatred abroad while hatred and discrimination festers at home. Unfortunately, the repeal bill was defeated again, but this did not deter efforts to challenge the law through other means.  Salisbury, MD., Union Station - 2016-096-2339 Walter Thurston Photograph Collection (2016.096) Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture While groups were pressuring politicians and the General Assembly into repealing the act, other efforts were underway. African Americans were using the press to appeal to people’s emotions. Many of the representatives sent to the Maryland General Assembly made references to the humiliation and treatment that the Jim Crow law subjected them to, but other news articles went into far greater detail and crafted hypothetical stories based on reality that put the reader in the shoes of Black passengers. One such story, titled “Maryland Where Jim Crow Begins” places the reader in the shoes of person of color traveling from New York to Cape Charles, Virginia. On most of this trip, the traveler enjoys an uninterrupted journey where Black and White passengers casually interacted without much hostility between them. However, once the traveler approaches Delmar, the White passengers begin to feel uneasy, casting glares at the Black riders who they were cordial with just moments before. At this point, passengers were ordered to move seats. If there were fewer White passengers, they were moved to a separate car and if there were fewer Black riders, then they were moved to a separate car. The same hypothetical traveler notices the opposite when returning north. The further away from the Mason-Dixon line they go, the more the color line blurs and the train desegregates itself. This story, based on the experiences of Black travelers, was meant to elicit an emotion response from White readers. It allowed White readers to experience what Black travelers in and through Maryland experienced on a daily basis, drawing out sympathy and support for a repeal of the law. This story also demonstrates the dehumanizing effect of Jim Crow, illustrating how a political boundary and a law could have a physical, social, and emotional effects on the citizens of Maryland. The crossing of an imaginary line on a map almost immediately dehumanized these passengers and left them as social outcasts. Finally, the scenario also shows how the law effects White passengers as they too can be moved at the will of the conductor in order to enforce segregation.  Ocean City, MD., Train Crossing Bridge - 2016-096-1196 Walter Thurston Photograph Collection (2016.096) Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture Apart from articles meant to draw sympathy from readers, there were also legal battles against the 1904 law. In 1934, Mrs. Isabella Smith of Philadelphia was riding on a Greyhound bus returning from Princess Anne when the bus made a stop in Salisbury. Smith, who had been seated toward the center, was ordered by the driver to move to the back to give a White passenger her seat. Smith refused and the situation escalated as the driver threatened her, saying “we lynch colored people down here when they don’t obey orders given by whites,” seemingly referencing the lynching of Matthew Williams less than three years ago. Smith, was not intimidated and did not yield to the demands. As a result, she was arrested, jailed overnight by police, and brought before a judge the following morning. However, the judge ordered for Smith’s release since the law was, at least on paper, not supposed to apply to interstate passengers, and only applied to trains and steamboats, not buses. Mrs. Smith’s bravery and refusal to sacrifice her rights as an American citizen resulted in a legal victory here on the Eastern Shore. A similar situation occurred in 1946 when another resident of Philadelphia, Levin Holland, was forcibly segregated by police on a bus ride from Philadelphia to Showell, Maryland. The Short Line Bus Company driver had ordered Holland to move to the back of the bus twice, once at Milford and a second time at Selbyville, before calling the police who promptly moved Holland to the back. The NAACP wrote a letter to the bus company, asserting their determination to bring an end to Jim Crow in transportation. While Holland was not jailed, he did fight for his right not to be segregated on an interstate trip, which the Supreme Court had decided was illegal, and he did not remain silent about his mistreatment on the Short Line bus. Both Smith and Holland refused to let themselves be dehumanized and treated as second class citizens by refusing to sit in segregated seating years before Rosa Parks became known for her refusal to give up her bus seat in 1955. However, neither of these individuals appeared to have been intentionally participating in civil disobedience as Rosa Parks and many other activists did in the second half of the 20th century. Nonetheless, these two individuals helped challenge and brought about change that helped desegregate transportation in Maryland. The efforts of the Black community here on the Eastern Shore and across Maryland paid off in 1951 when a repeal bill first passed the House of Delegates in a 70 to 40 vote and then passed the Senate in a 22 to 7 vote. In both Houses, Eastern Shore representatives, who were expected to pose unified opposition to the bill as they had in the past, were divided. Pressure on Eastern Shore representatives appears to have worked in convincing enough to vote in favor of a repeal. In the Senate, three Eastern Shore Counties voted for the repeal: Wicomico, Worcester, and Somerset counties. Despite this victory, segregation in other aspects of life were still practiced, but the Black community kept fighting for equality. They continued protesting and pushing segregation to its limit as was seen by the actions of the brave individuals in the 1961 Crisfield Freedom Rides and protests. Another victory was secured nationwide in 1964 with the Civil Rights Act, outlawing segregation in public space. Lower Shore residents demonstrated that change was possible. Through their efforts, they helped bring an end to a nearly four decade old repressive law and brought Maryland a step closer to the American value of equality. Primary Sources:
“The B.C. &A Must Not Discriminate: Equal Accommodations Must Be Accorded All Passengers of The Company.” The Baltimore Afro-American, March 1, 1913. “B.C. & A. Railway Before Public Service Board: They Are Charges with Giving Inferior Accommodations to Colored Passengers.” The Baltimore Afro-American, February 1, 1913. “Chapter 109.” In the Laws of the State of Maryland, Made and Passed. John Murphy Co., Publishers, 1904. “Chapter 110.” In the Laws of the State of Maryland, Made and Passed. John Murphy Co., Publishers, 1904. “Court Jim Crow Decision Defied.” The Baltimore Afro-American, July 6, 1946. Dunbar-Nelson, Alice. “Maryland Where Jim Crow Begins.” The Baltimore Afro-American, October 22, 1927. “Eastern Shore Citizens Do Not Want J.C. Repeal Says Salisbury Senator: David J. Ward Tells Committee Both Races are Satisfied with Jim Crow Law. Group Asks Shore Leaders to Write Him and Other Senators Letters,” The Baltimore Afro-American, March 11, 1933. “House Committee Hears 17 Pleas for JC Repeal.” The Baltimore Afro-American, March 1, 1945. “J.F. Stewart and Principal T.H. Kiah Say People on Shore Resent J.C. Law.” The Baltimore Afro-American, March 18, 1933. “House Passes Jim Crow Repealer in Md. 70-40.” The Baltimore Afro-American, February 10, 1951. “Maryland Wipes ‘04 JC Travel Law Off Books.” The Baltimore Afro-American, February 24, 1951. “Pa. Woman Sues Greyhound Bus Line for Jim Crow: Driver Had Cop Eject Her on Lynching Shore and Threaten Her. Kept in Jail Entire Night She Declares. Judge Freed Her as J.C. Law is Not for Buses.” The Baltimore Afro-American, October 6, 1934. Hutchison, Anne W. “Jim Crow Law Killed by Senate: No Segregation on Bay Ferry System After June 1.” The Baltimore Afro-American, February 16, 1951. “Shocking Conditions on B.C. & A. Railroad: Mr. Thomas W. Turner Complains to Public Service Commission, Hateful Discrimination is Practiced.” The Baltimore Afro-American, December 14th, 1912. Secondary Sources: Bogen, David S. “Precursors of Rosa Parks: Maryland Transportation Cases Between the Civil War and the Beginning of World War I.” Faculty Scholarship 70, vol. 63 (2004): 721-751. Maryland State Archives. “Commission on Civil Rights.” Maryland Manual On-Line: A Guide to Maryland and Its Government. Accessed October 10, 2024, https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/25ind/html/44humanf.html.
1 Comment
|
Archives
October 2025
Categories |
RSS Feed
