Maryland Transportation Cases:
End of Civil War — Plessy v. Ferguson
1865 — 1896
Mission of the project
When the Civil War ended in April 1865, the former slave-holding state of Maryland had to rebuild its society. In an effort to continue subjugating Black citizens, transportation companies such as the Baltimore City Railroad Company and Baltimore & Ohio Railroad forced segregation on their train cars and waiting platforms. When sued, the railroads often lost these cases.
Until Plessy v. Ferguson made "separate but equal" a legal policy in May 1896, each judge interpreted the law for themselves. This project explores segregated transportation in Maryland between these years — when it appeared that race-based segregation would be proved fully illegal sooner rather than later.
Some of the notable times that transportation segregation was brought to court in Maryland.
How did Johns Hopkins — the man and the institution — fit in with Baltimore segregationist attitude?
Questions?
Contact the Hard Histories at Hopkins team to get more information on the project.
References
-America’s Historic Newspapers Database
-David S. Bogen, Precursors of Rosa Parks: Maryland Transportation Cases Between the Civil War and the Beginning of World War I, 63 Md. L. Rev. 721 (2004). http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/mlr/vol63/iss4/6
-Henry Elliot Shepherd, History of Baltimore, Maryland, from its founding as a town to the current year, 1729-1898: including its early settlement and development; a description of its historic and interesting localities; political, military, civil, and religious statistcs; biographies of representative citizens, etc., etc. UniontownPa., S.B. Nelson. 1898, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011440878
-Maryland Center for History and Culture special collections
All newspaper screenshots are taken from websites linked below the article.
All other photos are in the public domain.