The Railroad Rosa Parks
Ida B. Wells had a first class ticket from Memphis to Nashville, Tennessee on May 4, 1884. She was sitting in the ladies' car when The conductor told her to move to the men's smoking car, where Negroes were allowed. She refused and was dragged out of the car by force. She sued and won a judgment of $500, because by law she was entitled to the first class seat she had paid for: segregation itself was not at issue. Twenty-one years later, a federal Supreme Court case would allow separate but "equal" accommodations, institutionalizing segregation on all public transportation. The railroad appealed the case to the Tennessee Supreme Court, which agreed with the railroad that the smoking car was not inferior, and anyway, Miss Wells was probably a troublemaker.
Even a state senator's wife, if black, was not immune to such treatment.
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