March 1867: Black Women Fight to Desegregate Philly Streetcars Reconstruction150

Pat Young

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Featured Book Reviewer
Joined
Jan 7, 2013
Location
Long Island, NY
philly streetcar 1870.JPG


This 1870 illustration depicts a Philadelphia streetcar.

The Philadelphia streetcar companies refused to allow blacks to ride on cars carrying whites. In many cases, this meant that no streetcars were available to blacks. Octavius Valentine Catto, a well known civil rights activist, and black women who had organized assistance for United States Colored Troops in 1864 and 1865 campaigned to end this segregation during the war. These early civil rights activists used a combined strategy of legal challenges, direct action, and legislation to effect change.

According to historian Judith Giesberg:

On March 22nd, 1867, Pennsylvania Governor John Geary signed a law outlawing segregation on street cars and railroads. The law stated that any service given or withheld on account of race was prohibited, including compelling riders to sit in special seats or seating them apart from other riders. The law allowed judges to either fine or imprison (or both) conductors who denied service to black riders or those who employed subterfuge in order to avoid serving black riders on an equal basis with whites.

Three days after the law was signed, a conductor on the Lombard Street line refused service to Caroline LeCount, taunting her by saying, “(w)e don’t allow n=ggers to ride.” LeCount lodged a complaint with the nearest police officer who claimed to know nothing about the new law. LeCount must have expected this reaction, for she carried a notice of the law with her and showed it to the officer. The police officer arrested the conductor and fined him $100. The incident revealed that even though the law had changed, black Philadelphians—many of them teachers like LeCount and Catto—still had their work cut out for them, teaching city residents what black civil rights meant.


Catto was murdered four years later by an Irish immigrant seeking to prevent him from voting.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top