Nostalgia & History > Segregated travel, Mississippi to Washington, DC, in 1963.

I am a fan of American blues music and I recently ran across an article about one of my favorite bluesmen, John Smith Hurt aka Mississippi John Hurt (1892-1966).  Hurt lived in Avalon, MS, working as a sharecropper.  He made some early recordings in 1928 that were not commercially successful and went back to farming. The American folk music revival was at its height in the early 1960's and Hurt was rediscovered.  The story is that Tom Hoskins, the blues enthusiast that rediscovered Hurt, persuaded him to move to Washington, DC, in 1963.  Hurt made recordings of his music for the Library of Congress during 1963-64.  He returned to his Mississippi and died in Grenada in 1966. All of this got me to wondered what Hurt might of experienced if he traveled to DC by rail (most likely I would think) back in 1963. 

The closest stations with passenger service in 1963 were Winona and Grenada on the former Illinois Central mainline.  He could have gone north to Memphis, St. Louis, Chicago or Effingham,IL, before heading east to Washington.  Or he could have gone south to New Orleans and then on to DC on the Southern also.  I was also wondering about what the experience of a poor African-American might of been on the trains of that period..  I am fairly certain that all the trains south of the Mason-Dixon line would have been segregated in 1963 and travel in coach would have been in the colored car(s).  What if his sponsors bought him a Pullman accommodations (he certainly could not afforded such on a sharecropper income)?   I have read about elaborate rules for how black people were to be served in the Dining car, with the two tables nearest the kitchen provided with curtains to prevent race mixing.  What about sleeping cars in the south?  Did black people even try to use them, was this discouraged?  What if he rode in a sleeper going east on say the Pennsy?  Would there have been discrimination there also, perhaps of a less blatant nature?

My only relevant experience with any of this was traveling once on the Frisco's Sunnyland from Springfield,MO, to Kansas City about 1964.  It was during the Labor Day weekend and the train had extra cars.  All of the black people were in two rebuilt heavyweight cars on the rear of the train. 

While 1963 might have been the end of segregated travel BY LAW, it still was extant on many public accomodations.

In 1969 I rode the CofG's Nancy Hanks II from Atlanta, GA to Savannah, GA. This was a no-charge reserved seat train and all passengers needed to pick up their reserved seat tickets at the Atlanta Station ticket office. The 'Nancy' had a dome car and all white passengers were 'reserved' to that car only. All other passengers rode the 'reserved' coach.

rrcaboose

The Supreme Court outlawed racial segregation on trains in 1960 under the theory of Interstate Commerce.

Dachinghwa Wrote:
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> The Supreme Court outlawed racial segregation on
> trains in 1960 under the theory of Interstate
> Commerce.

But that didn't actually change many practices on the ground. Intrastate rail travel wasn't directly covered, and "local customs" were enforced on rail and buses. That's why the freedom riders were beaten and killed four and five years later.

ETA - "Justice Marshall has issued his decision, now let him enforce it"   Andrew Jackson, ignoring the rule of law and driving the southern native Americans onto the trail of tears.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/17 17:15 by Lackawanna484.

A story I heard many years ago about some streetcar enthusiasts from Los Angeles who had seen their home town streetcar operation become PCC-cars-only in 1958:  They had traveled to New Orleans to ride the only street railway that still used traditional cars.  When they boarded their first Perley Thomas car, they noticed the wooden signs place in the backs of two of the seats.  The signs said "White" on one side and "Colored" on the other.  Being young, white and somewhat ornery, our travelers sat down in the "Colored" section.  The conductor collected their fares and then moved the signs, which could be relocated depending on the ethnic ratio of the load, to put our boys in the "White" section.  Probably just to see what would happen, they got up and moved to the other side of the sign.  Then the conductor asked, "Y'all ain't from around here, are you?"  When they admitted that they were from Southern California, he told them, "We do things differently here in Louisiana, and if you don't follow the local custom, both you and me could get in a lot of trouble."  Realizing that the time for playing games was over, they moved back to the "pale people" section and rode to the end of the line.  

When New Orleans Public Service cut streetcar operations back to where only the St. Charles line was running (1964), some of the classic streetcars went to railway museums.  NOPSI 913 went to Orange Empire, my home museum, where someone pointed out the brass-lined holes in the backs of seats in the middle of the car and commented on how the signs were not included when the car came to California.

The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, where I was an operator for a number of years, has the 832 Perley Thomas.  The question about the holes in the seats came up from time to time, and often caused interesting discussion.