Passenger Trains > Jim Crow coaches? Where and when?

While browsing some ATSF material on the web I came across references to "Partitioned Coaches". The odious nature of the concept aside, which states required Jim Crow cars, and when did those states drop the requirement? Were the cars maintained to the same standards of non Jim Crow cars? I realize they may well not have been as plush, but were they maintained to the same mechanical and reliability standards as the rest of the equipment. Watered before runs and cleaned afterwards?

For those of us who enjoy the history of the American railroad, this is the type of information that can be tough to locate because of both the passage of time and the availability of references. I\'ve spent the majority of my life in California and there was never a requirement for partitioned equipment here.

As an aside, I was appalled the first time that I visited the Pentagon close to thirty years ago; I noticed that there seemed to be an inordinate number of men\'s and ladies rooms. It was only after it was explained to me that Virginia was a southern state when the building was constructed, and if not required by law, separarte plumbing was required by tradition.

I don\'t know if someone was blowing smoke up my skirt or not, but it seemed to be a reasonable explanation at the time.

Thanks for any enlightenment.

John G.

PS: The plumbing still looked straight from the forties the last time I was in the building in October 2002.

Lt Col Gezelius, USAFR, (Ret)

Amtrak took over numerous cars from SCL, L&N, Southern and C&O; partitions were used for racial divisions. Even the Sou diners had a partition at the very back two tables for Jim Crow patrons.

I am not familiar with IC equipment, but I would imagine similar accomodations existed.

Obviously under the operating railroads in the mid 60s and under Amtrak the partitions were ignored.

Here\'s two articles to get on Jim Crow - one in 2/2001 Trains and also one in NRHS National Railway Bulletin, Vol. 62, number 4, 1997.

Overall, blacks probably did not get their money\'s worth, but in my view, it is hard to generalize. Mechanically, at least mainline equipment had to be maintained for safety purposes. Some streamlined trains had comparable accommodations (except for access to diner and lounge areas). Blacks in the south also had difficulty in traveling by Pullman.

In lots of ways the railroads were constrained by state laws and local customs, but I think you would find that most railroad passenger departments realized that blacks provide a large part of their business. On the other hand, a bigoted conductor or trainman could make the travel experience a lot worse.

That\'s probably right about plumbing at the Pentagon, but I don\'t know for sure. One big setback for Civil Rights was when Woodrow Wilson was elected President and he resegregated Washington, DC.

Hope this helps.

In the same vein, the Illinois Central had unoffically segregated trains through the 1950\'s. When I lived in Chicago I would frequently take the City of New Orleans to Springfield Illinois. Every passenger would be given a car number at the gate to sit in. In just so happened that all the black passengers got the forward cars and the white passengers got the rear cars.

TRANSPORTATION - Under Jim Crow\'s Law:(Aprox.1890-1960)
Here is a sampling from various states,etc.

ALABAMA: All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for the white and colored races.

ALABAMA: The conductor of each passenger train is authorized and required to assign each passenger to the car or the division of the car, when it is divided by a partition, designated for the race to which such passenger belongs. Maryland: All railroad companies are hereby required to provide separate cars or coaches for the travel and transportation of the white and colored passengers

MARYLAND:
All railroad companies and corporations, and all persons running or operating cars or coaches by steam on any railroad line or track in the State of Maryland, for the transportation of passengers, are hereby required to provide separate cars or coaches for the travel and transportation of the white and colored passengers.

VIRGINIA:
The conductors or managers on all such railroads shall have power, and are hereby required, to assign to each white or colored passenger his or her respective car, coach or compartment. If the passenger fails to disclose his race, the conductor and managers, acting in good faith, shall be the sole judges of his race.

In 1890, LOUISIANA passed the "Separate Car Law," which purported to aid passenger comfort by creating "equal but separate" cars for Blacks and Whites. This was a ruse. No public accommodations, including railway travel, provided Blacks with equal facilities. The Louisiana law made it illegal for Blacks to sit in coach seats reserved for Whites, and Whites
could not sit in seats reserved for Blacks.

After the Reconstruction years, blacks and whites often rode together in the same railway cars, ate in the same restaurants, used the same public facilities, but did not often interact as equals.

In 1883, The U.S. Supreme Court began to strike down the foundations of the post-Civil War Reconstructin, declaring the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional. The Court also ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibited state governments from discriminating against people because of race but did not restrict private organizations or individuals from doing so. Thus RAILROADS, hotels, theaters, and the like could legally practice segregation.

The high court rulings led to a profusion of Jim Crow laws.
By 1914 every Southern state had passed laws that created two separate societies; one black, the other white. Blacks and whites could not ride together in the same RAILROAD CARS, sit in the same waiting rooms, use the same washrooms, eat in the same restaurants, or sit in the same theaters.

Starting in 1915, victories in the Supreme Court began to chip away at the Jim Crow Laws.

The first major blow against the Jim Crow system of racial segregation was struck in 1954 by the Supreme Court\'s decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, which declared segregation in the public schools unconstitutional.

This began what is known as the "Civil Rights Movement" and began the end of the Jim Crow Laws.

Some railroads applied segregation rules even when the law didn\'t require it.

African Americans traveling on Pennsy trains from Philly and NYC into the South would often be initially seated in coaches which would become the official Jim Crow cars once the train left WAS. Local trains on the eastern shore (Maryland, Delaware, Virginia) had informal, but observed, seating rules.

In many areas of Indiana, Illinois, Delaware and Maryland, the 1920s and 1930s saw a resurgence of the Klan. A border state resident who protested the racist policies might find a burning cross or worse for protesting.

I\'m well aware of the US Supreme Court rulings regarding segregation, starting with Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) and progressing through Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U.S. 241. This line of cases dealt with public accomodation. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) was a back door way to overturn Plessy via the use of a suspect classification . . . but I took Con law in \'87 and since taking the bar exam I have never worried much about Con Law.

The law notwithstanding, I was curious about the practice and how the railroads applied the local rules.

After the demise of the Jim Crow cars, did they start showing up in general service?

The New Orleans Union station, built in 1952 had two sets of restrooms and were still in service that way in 1956.

The New Sunset Limited built by Budd in 1950, had a Jim Crow divided Coach, but the demand for space was so great, it soon became a full coach. car 20 eastbound and 10 westbound.

The Sunset, as well as other trains would load at the end points, so that when the train passed through a Jim Crow area, few were disturbed.
On the Sunset Route, Texas was the problem.
If At El Paso, a black was not in the proper coach, they would be moved!

A future story in the SP Historical Publication, will contain some material that I provided on this subject.

I was with SP reservations during the 1950\'s and remember it well.

The Southern Railway/COG had the Nancy Hanks listed up until about 1963 as "Seats reserved for White Passengers Only" in their Railway Guide and Timetable entries. Life has evolved....

As far as I know, there were no IC coaches in the streamline era with partitions. Neither the 2600 series cars ordered from Pullman-Standard in 1947 nor the many heavyweight cars rebuilt at Burnside Shops and given the Orange and Brown livery had partitions. After the Amtrak takeover in 1971, L&N coaches appeared on the IC trains and some of these did have partitions.

p.s. It would be difficult to take the City of New Orleans from Chicago to Springfield, IL unless it were on a detour via St. Louis to Carbondale. The normal route of this train was via the "Chicago Branch" through Champaign and Centralia.

I was talking to my 10 year old daughter about this very subject earlier this week. I took out some of my SAL and acl station drawings and showed her that there were indeed separate waiting rooms and restrooms for the black and white patrons. While this may be apalling to some today, back in the day it was very common and required by law in some places as well. Many would prefer to forget these things in American history. I choose not to. We need to remember them so that we don\'t ever go down that road again.

D Blake
TTHOTS
Columbus, OH

john1082 wrote:

> ...The law notwithstanding, I was curious about the practice and
> how the railroads applied the local rules.
>
> After the demise of the Jim Crow cars, did they start showing
> up in general service?

Yes, as far as mainline coaches, both heavyweight and lightweight. Old wooden, center baggage door Jim Crow cars weren\'t good for much, especially as branchline services were dropped. However the L&N used such a car when the Civil War locomotive, the General, was returned to service for the Civil War Centennial tour.

As far as laws were applied, at the dawn of the 20th Century, the railroads in the South were faced with whether to follow state law or federal law. Less equipment would be required if federal law was followed, thus lower operating costs. However, I\'ve seen files from one major railroad where those issues were weighed and the conclusion was drawn that penalties under state law were greater that under federal law, so following state law was the way to go.

I thought of another example of separate, but unequal. Before air conditioning became common on all passenger equipment, the black coaches might be non-air-conditioned, but the white coaches were more likely to be air-conditioned.

Another consideration was the quality of service received by colored patrons. If you were a colored passenger you didn\'t have the benefit of a stepbox or trainman to assist you in boarding/detraining, if you ate in the dining car you ate before or after the white passengers and you didn\'t even think about a Pullman car. If by some chance you were able to get space in a Pullman, it would be a "Lower 13" and you didn\'t even contemplate a visit to the lounge or observation car. You knew that the ticket agent would ignore you until all of the white passengers were served and in cases where there was only one waiting room, you waited outside in the weather!

Getting back to the Jim Crow coaches, the railroads did indeed subject black patrons to cars that were substandard and unsafe in regard to condition. Steel coaches were for whites as their lives were judged to be more valuable than the colored passenger. Furthermore, many railroads ripped off colored passengers by requiring them to pay first class fares for their substandard accomodations.

Overall, the Southern Railway was regarded as the worst railroad in the nation in regards to its treatment of colored passengers. Southern hospitality was reserved for whites only. Furthermore, employees on the old Central of Georgia were reportedly attempting to enfore the old segregation rules as late as 1964/65. The Interstate Commerce Commission rulings did not apply to all of the Central\'s trains as many of them were intrastate. Some of their partitioned cars remained in service, minus their partitions while others were retired. Central of Georgia No. 528 was retired prior to the end of segregation and never really modified other than the 1940s modernization (it was a heavyweight car). During its restoration at Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, it was restored to its segregation era appearance complete with white and colored signs and interpretive signage onboard.

Strange, but true!

---

From 1950-54 I operated a travel agency at a New
England college and specialized in rail travel. One of my clients was from Atlanta, son of a black professional. He traveled the Crescent with some regularity. Always by roomette. No problem. He told me that the reason for insisting in Pullman was that he was treated properly, that he was served in the diner just like the others, and so forth. That he might have had some decent treatment might relate in a small way that in the 1950s, those of us travelling in Pullman would usually be in suit and tie. It did make a statement, and the statement generated respect. Indeed, in those days, I always traveled in (sports) coat and tie. The modern sloppiness would have been thought low class, bizarre, without taste, and your treatment in the dining car, for example, would not have been good.

It was in or by the early 1950s that the military was integrated. (Korean War) Military traffic was important to the railroads, especially in the south, and I doubt that those in uniform would have been given a hard time, expecially officers in uniform. It was common then to travel in uniform. There was a war on. However, mainline South, and local South would have been different for everyone.

Growing up in the north, I never witnessed segregated facilities on trains or in buildings until I visited my brother who was then in Florence AL about 15-20 years ago. Knowing I was a railfan, he took me to lunch at the former Southern RR station, which had been converted to a restaurant.

To me, it all clicked at once. I had to explain it to my brother and his family. Clearly evident was the "white" and "colored" sides of the station...even different size/quality of entryways. Inside, only the "white" side had restrooms, the "colored" side obviously had to use outhouses not far away. The ticket agent and snack counter (maybe baggage office?) was in the center of the station, dividing the two sides. The ticket office had windows/counters on both sides, whereas the snack counter only had access from the "white" side.

I\'m still stunned to this day at the supposed "equal" treatment for all races back then, and thankful for the improvements since then. Sadly, however, we as a nation, still have a long ways to go.

Somebody who knows D&RGW passenger equipment better than I can provide details or even tell me I\'m full of grits, but when the Rio Grande aquired some if not all of the almost-brand-new equipment built for C&O\'s "Chessie" in the 1950\'s at least some of the equipment was partitioned (not the domes, which were of course seperated by the domes themselves). Sorry my memory is so fuzzy but it HAS been over 35 years....

lowwater

they have a post war p/s coach thet has a sign that can be rotated colored, white,even perhaps a blank side.

It appears (from Wayner) that the post WWII
Southern would assign "colored" seating in the Baggage-Dorm Coach and the forward half of the Partitioned Coach.

The "colored" portions had 2 restrooms with toilet and sink, while the "white" portions (and the full coaches) had a Mens and Womens lounge with toilet annex.

At least the coach seats were all equal in size and spacing.