"Elizabeth Jennings Graham" [1830-1901]

Was a black woman who lived in New York City.She figured in an important early

civil rights case,when she insisted on her right to ride on a streetcar in 1854.Elizabeth was the daughter of Thomas Jennings,a successful tailor,and important man in New York's black community.By 1854,she become a school teacher and church organist.Elizabeth taught at the city's African Free Schools,and later public schools.In the 1850s the horse-drawn street car was becoming more common as a mode of transportation,competing with the horse-drawn omnibus in the city.Like Omnibus lines,the streetcar lines,were owned by private companies and the owners could refuse to serve any passengers they wished to. Many refused to allow black passengers.On Sunday,July 16 1854 Elizabeth set off for the First Colored Congregational Church,where she was organist.As Elizabeth she was running late,she boarded a streetcar of the Third Avenue Railroad Company at the corner of Pearl and Chatham streets.The conductor ordered her to get off.When she refused,the conductor tried to remove by force.Eventually,with the aid of a police officer,she was ejected from the streetcar.There was an organized movement among black New Yorkers to end this discrimination,led by notables such as her father,Thomas,Rev.James William Charles Pennington,and Rev.Henry Highland Garnet.Her story was publicized by Frederick Douglass,and received national attention.Elizabeth filed a lawsuit against the driver,the conductor,and Third Avenue Railroad Company in Brooklyn,where Third Avenue was headquartered she was represented by the law firm of Culver,Parker,and Arthur.Her case was handled by the firm's 24-year-old junior partner Chester Alan Arthur,future President of the U.S.In 1855,she received a verdict in her favor.In his charge to the jury,Brooklyn Circuit Court Judge William Rockwell declared:Colored persons if sober,well behaved,and free from disease,had the same rights as others and could neither be excluded by any rules of the company,nor by force or violence.The jury found for Elizabeth,and awarded damages in the amount of $225.00(comparable to $5,000 to $10,000 in 2008 dollars).The judge added 10% and $22.50 in costs.The next day,the Third Avenue Railroad Company ordered its cars desegregated.The Third Avenue Railroad,one of of the first four street railway companies to be franchised in the city,had been in operation only one year at the time of the Elizabeth incident.The Elizabeth case was instrumental in establishing policy for a new service industry.A month after the verdict,a black man was refused admission to a car of the Eight Avenue Railroad,another of the four companies.He won a similar confirming that in New York passengers could not refused a ride based on race.New York's public transit was fully desegregated by 1861.Elizabeth married Charles Graham,and had a son,Thomas.He was a sickly child and died of convulsions during the New York Drafts Riots of July 1863.With the assistance of a white undertaker,the Grahams slipped through mob-infested streets and buried their child in Cypress Hill Cemetery in Brooklyn.The funeral service was read by Rev.Morgan Dix of the Trinity Church on Wall Street.In later years,Elizabeth lived at 247 West 41st Street,where she operated the city's first kindergarten for black children.