Race Distinctions in American LawStephenson, Gilbert Thomas
History
Race Distinctions in American Law
Stephenson, Gilbert Thomas
African Americans -- Politics and government; Law -- United States -- History; United States -- Race relations
As already suggested, the “Jim Crow” laws apply to three classes of
vehicles, namely: steamboats, railroad cars, and street cars. There is
comparatively little legislation about white and colored passengers on
steamboats. North Carolina[538] is the only State to include steamboats
in the regular “Jim Crow” law. It requires all steamboat companies
engaged as common carriers in the transportation of passengers for hire
to provide separate but equal accommodations for the white and colored
races of all steamboats carrying passengers. The violation of this law
is punishable by a fine of one hundred dollars; each day is considered a
separate offence.
On February 9, 1900, the Virginia[539] legislature enacted a statute
requiring the separation of white and colored passengers on all
steamboats carrying passengers and plying in the waters within the
jurisdiction of the State in the sitting, sleeping, and eating
apartments, so far as the “construction of the boat and due
consideration for comfort of passengers” would permit. There must be no
difference in the quality of accommodations. The law makes an exception
of nurses and other attendants traveling with their employers, and
officers in charge of prisoners. For disobeying the law, the boat
officer is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not less than
twenty-five dollars nor more than one hundred dollars. Any passenger
wilfully disobeying the law is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a
fine of not less than five dollars nor more than fifty dollars or by
imprisonment for not less than thirty days, or both. The boat officer
may eject an offending passenger at any landing place, and neither he
nor the steamboat company will be liable. In 1901, the above law[540]
was made more stringent by omitting the provision about the construction
of the boat and consideration for the comfort of the passengers, quoted
above. In 1904, South Carolina[541] required all ferries to have
separate cabins for white and colored passengers.
The above legislation seems to be the only legislation as to steamboats
up to the present; but it does not measure the separation of the races
on steamboats, inasmuch as the companies in the various States have
adopted regulations requiring separate accommodations for the races.
This custom applies to interstate as well as to intrastate travel. The
steamers plying between Boston and the ports of the South, for instance,
provide separate dining tables, separate toilet rooms, and separate
smoking rooms for the white and colored passengers. This regulation of
interstate travel is upheld by two Federal cases, one in Georgia[542] in
1879 and the other in Maryland[543] in 1885, which held in substance,
that, inasmuch as Congress has enacted no law which forbids interstate
common carriers from separating white and colored passengers so long as
the accommodations are equal, during congressional inaction, the
companies may make their own regulations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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