Jim Crow laws & railroads

[Trinity River Bottoms Boomer]

Good thing DEMOCRACY is on the way.  We're living out Orwell's 1984 today!

[wjstix]

Democracy is Coming - to the USA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU-RuR-qO4Y

 

[Trinity River Bottoms Boomer]

Peter, so sad but true...and to add insult to injury, in 2018 in the United States, the Dream invisioned by the late great Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. still hasn't come to pass.

[M636C]

Some of my best buddies on DB in Deutschland were from Turkey no less, and believe me, it was FUN FUN FUN...all the way!

I remember seeing the immigrant workers from Turkey in Germany in the late 1970s. They held a lot of the jobs on large passenger stations. You just didn't want to ask them a question in bad German.

But more relevant to this thread is that most of them were ethhnic Kurds who are still treated badly in Turkey today. The Turkish armed forces are fighting a war against Kurds in northern Iraq who have declared independence from the dysfunctional Iraqi government. Why: because they might support Kurds within Turkey who also want independence.

Turkey is pretty much a dictatorship now. It's good that many of its aims are the same as the West.

Peter

[Miningman]

Not a problem, I had assistance. 

[erikem]

That is the ad I was referring to, thanks for posting.

[Miningman]

[erikem]

By coincidence I happened to spot of reprint of an ad on the rear cover of Traction Heritage Vol 2 No 3 (May 1969). Theme of the issue was "Selections From 1931 Electric Railway Journal" and the ad appeared in one of the 1931 issues of ERJ.

Advertiser was National Pneumatic Company and the theme of the ad was "fourfold advantages of Atlanta's Treadle Cars", were the the treadle conrolled opening of the rear exit doors. The 4th advantage was:

One-man cars, by segregating the races, have practically eliminated racial friction in Atlanta's street cars.

The ad did not go into the nature of the racial tensions.

Two of the photos in the ad show white passengers leaving by the front door and "colored" passengers exiting via the treadle equipped rear door.

 

[Trinity River Bottoms Boomer]

Sad but true Todd.

As a Vet (US Army Transportation Corps 1964-1967) I served my country with Pride together with Afro-Americans, Puerto Ricans, and other great Human Beings.  In 2018 our naton is as divided (if not more) than it was on the eve of the outbreak of the War Between the States in 1861...

...and Jim Crow is alive and well today too, be it in sports, or in a Starbucks.

Then we have the Native Americans who were put in Reservations.  Reserved for what anyway?

I have always respected EVERY railroader regarless of race color code religion or nationality be it in the US of A or former USSR.  They shared a common love for railroading just like I did on the ATSF SSW or Deutsche Bundesbahn!  You bet, I switched in the land of automatic couplers in Texas as well as screw couplers in Germany. 

Some of my best buddies on DB in Deutschland were from Turkey no less, and believe me, it was FUN FUN FUN...all the way!

 

 

[Jones1945]

3rd rail

That was, and now again is, a very sad chapter in our nations history. I fear we are destined to repeat it if we don't pull our heads out of our nether regions. I am a free-thinking person, I don't align myself with any political party, but when I see foul, I call foul. Whatever happened to the so-called "UNITED STATES"?  I mean, UNITED means "Together", correct?  It is a shame.. As a veteran I never thought that I would be ashamed to call myself an American. But, it's getting very close to that. Closer every day...........

Todd 

I really appreciate your genuine sharing, Todd. Internet is still a strange thing for me, sometimes when I searching for informations about railroad history during the war, it show me something I didn’t expect to see; some sad and depressing history about the States during 40s to 60s. I never expect typing some keywords related to trains in the search engine could lead me to “Philadelphia Insane Asylum abuse” etc…… All these Streamlined Engines and trainset were so spectacular and charming, but in the corners of a dining car on the South Wind or somewhere in the country, there were so much injustice and suffering......

[3rd rail]

That was, and now again is, a very sad chapter in our nations history. I fear we are destined to repeat it if we don't pull our heads out of our nether regions. I am a free-thinking person, I don't align myself with any political party, but when I see foul, I call foul. Whatever happened to the so-called "UNITED STATES"?  I mean, UNITED means "Together", correct?  It is a shame.. As a veteran I never thought that I would be ashamed to call myself an American. But, it's getting very close to that. Closer every day...........

 

Todd 

[Miningman]

How on earth did they get away with that? Legally I mean? 

[Overmod]

wjstix

In the South it wasn't uncommon for blacks to be hired as firemen on steam engines, although only white firemen could be promoted to engineers. I believe for some time they weren't allowed into the 'white' union.

Something to remember is that there was more than one 'union' for engineers: one was specifically for firemen who had 'graduated' to engineer but wanted to retain brotherly ties with firemen.  (This is one source of the training 'traditions' being discussed in some of the Amtrak training-efficacy threads.)

This particular union, as I recall, had strong anti-black bias for a considerable time in its history; someone might research the actual history and timeline which I think is well-documented (see for example Tunstall v. Brotherhood, 1944)

[wjstix]

In the South it wasn't uncommon for blacks to be hired as firemen on steam engines, although only white firemen could be promoted to engineers. I believe for some time they weren't allowed into the 'white' union.

[Jones1945]

Miningman

......The railroads were a major employer of African Americans and continued to be so in the ensuing years but the loss of jobs must have been enormous and I think they took the brunt of it. 

I believe they did. On the other hand, the total Civilian and Military casualties of the States and UK in World War II were 418,500 and 450,700 respectively. Causalities of Korean war of US was 49,000 (including soldiers who were missing). More than 3% of US's population (Compare to 1941) was sacrificed in both war, many of our soldiers were still young and at working age. A lot of Jobs were available during this period, especially from Automobile manufacturers, but I agree that African Americans who never received any professional training, not to mention basic education might affected by the decline of Railroad.

Respect! 

[Miningman]

A parallel subject to all this.

With the demise of steam and passenger service post war on a transformative scale over a short period of time an awful lot of African Americans must have been laid off, lost their jobs forever, in roundhouses, yard jobs, track gangs, on board services as cooks and waiters and of course legions of Pullman Porters in the sleeping cars. 

Roundhouse jobs were dirty, labour intensive, actually poorly paid and a person ws sort of stuck with what they did forever. Dieselization provided jobs for skilled military men, ( ahem,,cough cough,,mostly non black) coming back from the war. Deferred track maintainence  meant a lot less track workers.  

The railroads were a major employer of African Americans and continued to be so in the ensuing years but the loss of jobs must have been enormous and I think they took the brunt of it. 

[Firelock76]

It was a different time 'Dude, some of it better, some of it worse, some of it understandable and some of it incomprehensable.

A mental exercise I do from time to time is step back (figurativly) take a long look at society as it is today, and wonder what they're going to say about us in 100 years time.   Will they think us backward, overly obsessed with things of no consequence, or so open-minded our brains fell out? 

Who knows?

[SD70Dude]

Amazing how much effort we as a society devoted to something completely pointless.

[Overmod]

wjstix

What I found did mention that the issue had already been settled earlier re Pullman cars

This is Henderson v. United States.  The earlier 'settlement' is probably Mitchell v. United States (1941).

(An interesting 'aside' in Mitchell is that drawing rooms in Pullmans were considered adequate 'segregation' under applicable Jim Crow statutes, and it was not unusual at the time for blacks to travel that way without difficulty)

[wjstix]

Just to follow-up my earlier post, I might be wrong about Pullman cars. I did find a 1950 Supreme Court case that said that dining cars couldn't be segregated. What I found did mention that the issue had already been settled earlier re Pullman cars - in fact, when the black gentleman was denied dining car service because the alloted spaces for blacks were occupied, he was told that they would bring his meal to him in his Pullman if he desired.

[Deggesty]

Yes. Once the westbound B&O trains crossed the Potomac into West Virginia, the bars were closed until almost into Maryland--ecept for a very short strecth where the trains crossed into Maryland and back into West Virgnia. If you were quick, you could get an alcoholic drink.

The KCS advertised, in its passenger timetables, that the bars were open in Missouri and Louisiana.

[Firelock76]

It wasn't just "Jim Crow" laws railroads had to worry about.  Plenty of long-distance trains had to shut down the "bar cars"  when passing through "dry" states, both before and after Prohibition.  Although, I suppose if you packed your own "refreshment" and were discreet about it nothing was said.

[Overmod]

The wacky segregation laws came after the Supreme Court decision in Plessey v. Ferguson that established the (now overturned) doctrine of 'separate but equal'.  Most of them, a bit amusingly, are 14th Amendment issues where states reserved the right to make "public" facilities ... including common-carrier transportation ... separated.

The precedent barring interference with Pullman passengers was a cause celebre in the latter 40s, and it led almost directly to the effort over Brown v. Board of Ed. in 1954 that overturned separate but equal in education, and the subsequent logic in the Heart of Atlanta case that led to use of the "interstate commerce clause" to impose Federal principle over state mandate. 

The point being made in 2006 about "Northern" prejudice being worse in some respects has a great deal of validity (although that can't be used to justify the 'lost cause' rhetoric very far) -- it needs to be remembered that the 'revived' Ku Klux Klan started up and initially flourished in the upper Midwest (from 1921 on), and was a nativist anti-Catholic organization long before it acquired its reputation for anti-black racism.  Google "Pekin, Illinois" for more nauseating detail than you want.  Or consider the need for the Green Books or other ways to avoid unanticipated sundown town activities... not just in the Deep South, but in areas that would now bend over backward to claim they never had them.

[Deggesty]

I do not recall just when segregation on board was forbidden; it may well been at the same time that segregated station facilities were forbiddem, which was in 1963 or 1964.

[Miningman]

Overmod-- Cannot argue with that, it's a minefield and invites all sorts of wrong people. The 'revived' thread poster is 'one of' guy 1st time and asking for a reference year. Reading quickly through the posts from 12 years ago the best I can ascertain is 1967. 

Not being American and totally unable to understand in any meaningful way, peering through the glass from outside, the only question I have is 'to what end?'

There is history here, real history involving railroads. I don't know if a site exists somewhere out there where a decent conversation can take place. 

[Overmod]

Do we really want to take up discussion on this 'zombie walks among us' thread, which was getting contentious in 2006 and promises to become so again now?

Just a heads-up, and in fair disclosure I personally would like to see more discussion.  Moderators will likely disagree, perhaps strongly.

[wjstix]

What is now called the Pledge of Allegiance was first written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister.

"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

It was changed several times, the first being when "to" was added before "the Republic" later in 1892; the last being in 1954 when it was officially codified into US law. That is when "under God" was added, under President Eisenhower's request, to differentiate the U.S. from the "godless Communists" in the USSR and China.

Pullman and the railroads were not exempt from state and local laws. If a state had a statute that people of different races couldn't ride in the same car, trains going through that state had to obey that law.

 

[Amtrain]

Can someone point me to this issue of TRAINS in which this article appeared? 

[Anonymous]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was born in 1932 and have a first hand knowledge of the period prior to the end of segregation in the 1960's. Railroads in the South (below the Mason-Dixon Line) followed state laws of the time which dictated that trains, waiting rooms, rest rooms, drinking fountains, etc. be racially segregated.

I spent a lot of time in the late 1940's around the ACL's Bradenton, Florida station and vividly remember there was a wall down the waiting room, White only on the trackside and "Colored" on the opposite side. There were separate restrooms and even separate ticket windows. The only passenger train through there at the time was the Tampa-Sarasota section of the West Coast Champion. This train ran with a combine baggage coach which was the "Jim Crow" car, and a streamlined White only coach and Pullman. Dining cars on trains in the South had a small partioned off dining area, typically two tables on either side of the aisle next to the kitchen, for Black diners.

At Central Station in Chicago the Illinois Central had "Passenger Service Agents" on the station platforms whose job ostensibly was to assist the boarding of trains. In reality they segregated the Chicago-New Orleans and Birmingham Line coach passengers. Passengers were asked their destinations and Blacks who where going south of Cairo, IL were directed to the front end coaches and whites to the rear coaches. Intrastate Illinois passengers could sit in any coach they desired. Passengers boarding at points south of Chicago were similarly segregated by the train crew. All other ralroads operating in the Southern states employed some scheme to racially segregate their trains.

Discrimination by race was not always confined to the deep south. I remember that the Rock Island had a crew turnaround point somewhere in Oklahoma. I could easily be wrong but Enid comes to mind as the location. Black coach porters worked the trains from Chicago to this point where they were relieved by a new porter crew for the rest of the Southwest run. This required the Chicago porters to wait several hours during the night for their return northbound train and vice versa for the Southwest crew. They were not welcome on the streets or in any of the town's businesses (bars and cafes) so the Rock Island built them a small shelter alongside the depot platform. All of the black porters knew it was wise to stay in this shelter awaiting their train and not venture onto the town streets after dark.

Contrary to what some of you have said I was not aware of any any segregation of Black Pullman passengers. I always assumed the logic was that if Blacks were affluent enough to afford Pullman acommodations they were "high class" enough to associate with White passengers.

All of this seems quite alien to us today but at the time these practices were understood and tolerated (but not always accepted) by both Blacks and Whites alike.