Streetcar to Justice

by Amy Hill Hearth

  Park Row was formerly called Chatham Street: Gangs of New York, 1.

  Interview by author of Miriam Sicherman, Nov. 19, 2016.

  Joseph Doherty: “Joe Doherty Corner: The Troubles in America” by Rachel Aileen Searcy, Archives of Irish America, The Back Table: Archives and Special Collections at New York University, March 13, 2015, https://wp.nyu.edu/specialcollections/2015/03/13/joe-doherty-corner-the-troubles-in-america/.

  Postscript: Chester A. Arthur: Tragedy Leads to Presidency

  Chester Arthur’s life as a Union army general, politician, vice president, and president of the United States: Gentleman Boss and The Life of Gen. Chester A. Arthur.

  Chester Arthur and his wife, Ellen, lost an infant son in 1863: “News of Chester Arthur’s Death: The Last Resting Place,” New York Times, Nov. 19, 1886.

  His interest in equality was never forgotten by black Americans, and in Lafayette, Ind., black leaders presented him with a plaque thanking him for his dedication to “justice to an oppressed people”: Gentleman Boss, 365.

  Author’s Note about Elizabeth Jennings’s Age in 1854

  IN SOME ACCOUNTS, and especially on the internet, Elizabeth Jennings is sometimes said to have been twenty-four years old when she was assaulted on the streetcar in Manhattan.

  I am inclined to believe she was twenty-seven.

  Why is her date of birth so unclear?

  Records of births were not documented in the United States in the meticulous way they are today. Babies were born at home. Sometimes midwives or doctors kept records of their own, but often the only record of a child’s birth might be written by a relative in a family Bible.

  Census reports done periodically by the government are crucial sources for journalists and historians, and for the most part they are reliable. However, much depended on the thoroughness (and the handwriting!) of each person hired to ask questions and fill out census forms in a designated area.

  The U.S. Census of 1850, for example, states that Elizabeth Jennings was twenty years old that year (therefore, twenty-four when she was assaulted). Yet the New York State Census of 1855 also states that she was twenty. Therefore, it doesn’t seem wise, in this instance, to rely on the U.S. Census.

  Thomas Jennings’s age is reported variously as well. The U.S. Census of 1850 states that he was “50,” or born in about 1800. But a more reliable source in this particular case is a tribute to, or obituary of, him. It was written by Frederick Douglass, who reported that Thomas died Feb. 11, 1859, at sixty-eight. That would mean the year of Thomas’s birth was 1791, which matches the date on his tombstone at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

  Meanwhile, on a bank record from Sept. 28, 1871, Elizabeth Jennings’s age was reported as “40.” If she had indeed been forty in 1871, she would have been born in 1830 or 1831 depending on her birthday. This would mean she was about twenty-four at the time of the assault. However, a close look at the bank record indicates that the form was filled out by a clerk, not by Elizabeth. That makes it much less reliable. A bank clerk at that time would not have asked a woman her age. He would have guessed.

  Cypress Hills Cemetery, where Elizabeth is buried, lists her birth date as 1830 on its website. However, a clerk contacted by e-mail said there were no cemetery records that could confirm that date. The gravestone meanwhile favors the theory that Elizabeth Jennings was twenty-seven at the time of the assault because it reads, “Died June 5, 1901, age 74 years.” It does not state a date of birth.

  A death certificate acquired from New York City matches the gravestone, stating that she was seventy-four when she died in 1901. This, too, indicates that she was born in 1827 and was therefore twenty-seven, not twenty-four, when she was assaulted on the streetcar in 1854.

  Suggested Reading

  I Am Rosa Parks, by Rosa Parks and Jim Haskins. Illustrations by Wil Clay. New York: Penguin Young Readers, 1999.

  Rosa Parks: My Story, by Rosa Parks and Jim Haskins. New York: Puffin Books, reprint ed., 1999.

  Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, by Phillip Hoose. New York: Melanie Kroupa Books/Farrar Straus Giroux, 2009.

  Maritcha: a 19th Century American Girl, by Tonya Bolden. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2015.

  Elizabeth Jennings’s Life within a Historical Timeline

  1827: Elizabeth Jennings is born in New York. This is also the year slavery finally ended for all enslaved persons in New York State.

  1840 to 1861: Harriet Tubman leads to freedom at least three hundred enslaved people, including her parents.

  1850: Fugitive Slave Act passed.

  July 16, 1854: Elizabeth Jennings is assaulted on a streetcar by a white conductor, driver, and policeman in New York City.

  February 22, 1855: Elizabeth Jennings’s case heard in court. Judge William Rockwell states that public transportation in New York City should not be segregated.

  1857: Dred Scott decision, in which the U.S. Supreme Court affirms the right of slave owners to take their slaves into western territories. Decision is notable, also, for the fact that the “plaintiff,” a man named Dred Scott, was said to not be a citizen and was therefore without standing to file the suit.

  April 12, 1861: Civil War begins.

  January 1, 1863: President Lincoln signs Emancipation Proclamation.

  July 13 through July 16, 1863: Civil War draft riots in New York. Elizabeth Jennings, her husband, Charles Graham, and her mother leave the city for the safety of the New Jersey seashore.

  May 9, 1865: Civil War ends.

  December 18, 1865: Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified. Slavery is abolished in the United States.

  Civil Rights Act of 1866: This law defines all persons born in the United States (except American Indians) as citizens with equal rights.

  July 28, 1868: Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution entered into force, overturning the Dred Scott decision and granting citizenship and equal, civil, and legal rights to blacks.

  March 30, 1870: Fifteenth Amendment formally adopted, granting black men the right to vote.

  1865–1877: Reconstruction Era, in which former Confederate states were drawn back into the Union.

  1890s: The Jim Crow era in the South—legalized discrimination against black people—begins. (Laws stay on the books until the1960s.)

  April 1895: Elizabeth Jennings, with two other black women, founds the first free kindergarten for black children in New York City. The school is established in her home at 237 West Forty-first Street.

  May 18, 1896: Plessy v. Ferguson case decided. Supreme Court upholds a Louisiana statute requiring railroads to segregate rail cars by providing “equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races.”

  June 5, 1901: Elizabeth Jennings dies in New York City.

  Important Locations

  •The church where Elizabeth Jennings was organist, and where she was heading the day of the assault, was the First Colored American Congregational Church, on Sixth Street near the Bowery. The church was torn down long ago.

  •The Jennings family home was at 167 Church Street in Manhattan. Today it is a six-story apartment building with a flower shop and café on the ground floor.

  •The sign that reads ELIZABETH JENNINGS PLACE is at the corner of Spruce Street and Park Row. The actual location of the streetcar stop where the assault on Elizabeth Jennings began is at Pearl Street and Park Row. (Park Row was previously called Chatham Street.)

  •The corner where the streetcar stopped, a policeman came on board, and Elizabeth was ejected from the car was at the corner of Walker Street and the Bowery. Today this intersection is known as Bowery and Canal.

  •The New York Municipal Slave Market was located where Wall Street met the East River.

  •The old building of Harper & Brothers (publisher of this book) was at 331 Pearl Street.

  •The African Burial Ground National Monument is at 290 Broadway between Duane and Reade streets.

  Acknowledgments

  SOMETIMES A
WRITER comes across a story that simply must be told, and no format other than a book published by a first-rate publisher can do it justice. The fact is, however, that no one creates such a book on his or her own. The writer needs a team of talented professionals. And it helps to have love and support at home.

  My husband Blair, no doubt, is the unsung hero of this book. I’m so grateful for all of the times he listened to me, made pots of coffee, fixed my computer, and even tagged along to research institutions when I’m fairly certain he had other things to do.

  If not for my close friend and fellow author Audrey Vernick, my research might still be sitting in boxes. Audrey informed me (in the way that only a good friend can) that it was time to stop my never-ending research, turn my hobby into a book, and share it with the world. The idea of writing the book for middle-grade readers (which I had never done) was also Audrey’s.

  My literary agent at William Morris Endeavor, Mel Berger, was fascinated from the start by the story of Elizabeth Jennings. His enthusiasm and dedication to the project is deeply appreciated. His assistant, David Hinds, kept tabs on the details in a professional manner. My longtime attorney, John R. Firestone, provided professional advice and personal encouragement, as always.

  I’m so grateful that Streetcar to Justice was published by Greenwillow Books/HarperCollins in New York. A writer could not ask for more. Virginia Duncan, my editor, is a visionary. She instinctively knew that this book would be important not just for young readers but teachers, librarians, and parents. She was passionate about the topic and shared my enthusiasm for history and especially for forgotten stories. Her guidance and support throughout the process were hugely important. She was the perfect editor for me and for this project.

  Special thanks to Tim Smith, managing editor at Greenwillow; Paul Zakris, art director; Katie Heit, for helping manage the photos and a thousand other details; Christy Hale, for the challenging job of designing the interior of the book; and Cozbi Cabrera, the brilliant artist who created the cover portrait of Elizabeth Jennings.

  I’m not sure I would have tackled this book project had I not written the 1993 oral history Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years. Sarah L. (Sadie) Delany and A. Elizabeth (Bessie) Delany, ages 102 and 100 when I met them, were the daughters of a man born into slavery and a mother who was mixed race but born free. From the Delany sisters I learned black history in depth and firsthand. The sisters, with whom I became close friends, often shared their hopes and expectations for my future career. Streetcar to Justice is exactly the type of project I believe they would have wanted me to do. I felt their presence every step of the way.

  My father, Lee H. Hill Jr., taught me from a young age to love and appreciate history. Sadly, as I was in the final stretch of finishing this book, he died at the age of 92. For the first time in my life I did not feel like writing. My mother, Dorothy S. Hill, who has always set the standard of professionalism for me, insisted that Dad would have wanted me to keep writing. My three older siblings—Lee H. Hill III, Dr. Jonathan D. Hill, and Helen Hill Kotzky—agreed with Mom and helped me maintain my focus. Members of my writing group, the Sisterhood of Atomic Engineers, grieved with me but kept me laughing, too. I am blessed to have all of you in my life.

  Professionals who offered generous assistance include Dr. Prithi Kanakamedala, assistant professor in the history department at Bronx Community College of the City University of New York; Dr. Amy Bass, professor of history and director of the honors program at the College of New Rochelle; John C. Carter and Rita Kline, who provided genealogical-research advice; and Miriam Sicherman, New York City public school teacher extraordinaire.

  Part of my job was to find images to go with my written text—the newspaper clippings, photographs, engravings, drawings, and paintings that would help bring the story to life. Among the professionals who provided assistance are Susan K. Forbes, Lisa Keys, and Nancy Sherbert at the Kansas State Historical Society; Eleanor Gillers and Robert Delap at the New-York Historical Society; David Rosado and Andrea Felder at the New York Public Library; Kelly Dyson at the Library of Congress; Rebecca Haggerty at the New York Transit Museum; Alla Roylance at the Brooklyn Public Library—Brooklyn Collection; Erin Beasley at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery; Lauren Robinson at the Museum of the City of New York; and Dana White at the Ossining (New York) Historical Society Museum.

  I’d like to think of this book as a testament to the importance of the written word (Elizabeth Jennings’s firsthand account of the assault), the free press (which published her letter and related stories), and, of course, the libraries and historical societies which preserved those stories for all time. Without all three, this book could not have been written.

  Illustrations

  PART I: A Day like No Other

  Chapter 1: “Those Monsters in Human Form”

  here, here: Elizabeth Jennings: Courtesy of Kansas State Historical Society.

  here: The black middle class: Wood engraving by Theodore R. Davis. Published in Harper’s Weekly, February 6, 1869. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

  here: A drawing of New-York (Manhattan) and at right, Brooklyn: John Bachmann (active 1849– 1885)/Museum of the City of New York.

  here: Crowded and filthy street in Five Points: Robert N. Dennis Collection of Stereoscopic Views, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

  here: Five Points 1827, “Intersection of Cross, Anthony and Orange Streets”: From Valentine’s Manual, 1885, page 112, image 35910 (same as image 44668) New-York Historical Society.

  here: Tish-Co-Han, a chief of the Lenni-Lenape people: Lithograph circa 1837 by John T. Bowen. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

  Chapter 2: Stray Dogs and Pickpockets

  here: Both photos from the Lonto/Watson Collection, 1885, Central Crosstown Railroad Cars, 7th Avenue, Manhattan, New York. Courtesy of New York Transit Museum.

  here: An advertisement for omnibuses: “All kinds of omnibuses manufactured by John Stephenson, New-York”; wood engraving, advertisement: Business Encyclopaedia & Commercial Directory. New York, Emerson, Alvord & Co., 185-?, p. 157; from the Bella C. Landauer Collection scrapbook, image 49100, New-York Historical Society.

  here: A horse-drawn streetcar in New York: Photograph by D. Hill, 42nd Street, north side, between 5th and 6th Aves., 1889; from the Geographic File (PR020), box 32, folder: W. 42nd Street—Fifth toward Sixth Avenue, New-York Historical Society.

  here: (top) Corner of Pearl and Chatham Streets (now the corner of Pearl Street and Park Row) in 1861: Museum of the City of New York.

  here: (bottom) Midsummer in Five Points: Art & Picture Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

  here: “Pork Lively,” 1859: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

  here: A drawing of Five Points in 1859: From D.T. Valentine’s Manual, 1860 folder, image 74639, New-York Historical Society.

  here: Slave Market on Wall Street: Art & Picture Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

  Chapter 3: A City Divided by Race

  here: Black chimney sweeps in New York: Photograph taken in 1860s by Charles D. Fredricks. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

  here: Street map of Manhattan in 1856: Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, The New York Public Library. “Map of the City of New York, 1856 / engrd. for D.T. Valentine’s Manual 1856 by G. Hayward, 120 Water St., N.Y.” New York Public Library Digital Collections

  Chapter 4: “I Screamed Murder with All My Voice”

  here: Elizabeth Jennings as a young woman. Painting by Cozbi Cabrera.

  Chapter 6: An Admired Family

  here: Frederick Douglass, 1880: Photo by Mathew B. Brady. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gilman Collection, Museum Purchase, 2005.

  here: The Colored American, September 23, 1837.

/>   here: The North Star, published by Frederick Douglass.

  here: Frederick Douglass’ Paper, Sept. 22, 1854.

  here: New York African Free School: penmanship with drawing of the exterior of the school; reads “The New York African Free School, erected in the year 1815 . . .”; Manuscripts Penmanship & Drawing Book, AFS, 1822, Vol. 4, page 6; c.t. #78742.6, image 59134, New-York Historical Society.

  here: A classroom in a school for black children: Colored Orphan Asylum, Good Friday, 1861, interior School Room No. 2, stereo, image 59133, New-York Historical Society.

  Chapter 7: A “Shameful” and “Loathsome” Issue

  here: New-York Daily Tribune, July 19, 1854.

  here: The Liberator, May 7, 1831.

  here: New-York Daily Tribune, September 7, 1850.

  here: New-York Daily Tribune, September 16, 1850.

  here: William Lloyd Garrison: Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

  here: Horace Greeley: Print Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

  Chapter 8: A Future U.S. President

  here: Chester Arthur in a photograph taken in about 1858: Sixth-plate daguerreotype, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

  here: Capture of a black female fugitive in New York: Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

  Chapter 9: Elizabeth Jennings v. Third Avenue Railroad Company

  here: Brooklyn City Hall (now Borough Hall): Brooklyn Public Library—Brooklyn Collection.