Elizabeth Jennings Graham
Why She's Interesting:
One hundred and one years before Rosa Parks bravely refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, Elizabeth Jennings Graham succeeded in desegregating a private rail line in Brooklyn.
On July 16th, 1854 Elizabeth Jennings Graham, 24 at the time, was headed to the First Colored Congregational Church where she was the organist. She boarded a streetcar of the Third Avenue Railroad Company, a private company with horse-drawn streetcars on rails. The conductor ordered her to get off alleging the car was full. When that proved incorrect, he alleged the other passengers were uncomfortable with her presence. Ms. Graham refused and was forcibly removed when the police arrived.
Elizabeth Jennings Graham was the daughter of a wealthy businessman and her father took Third Avenue Railroad Company to court with the help of a young lawyer named Chester A. Arthur, who would go on to become the 21st President of the United States. He too, was 24 at the time.
The Brooklyn Circuit Court ruled in Ms. Jennings favor and by 1860 all of the streetcars in New York were desegregated, a year before the Civil War began. Thirteen years later New York State passed the Civil Rights Act desegregating all public transportation in the state, thus the New York Subway system (established in 1904) has always been desegregated by law thanks to Elizabeth Jennings Graham.
Books Featuring Elizabeth:
America's First Freedom Rider - Jerry Mikorenda
Lizzy Demands a Seat! - Beth Anderson
Streetcar to Justice - Amy Hill Hearth