Elizabeth Jennings took on NYC transit rules and won

A century before Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white patron in Montgomery, Alabama, a Black schoolteacher in New York City was violently thrown from a horse-drawn streetcar for daring to ride while Black — and took the transit company to court and won.

Elizabeth Jennings fought for her right to ride the streetcars in New York City and went on to win a lawsuit against the Third Avenue Railroad Co., helping lead the way to desegregating New York City’s transit systems.

While Parks’ story is much more well-known than that of Jennings, people like East Northport author Jerry Mikorenda are working to change that. Through his research, which included frequent trips to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, Mikorenda tells her story in his book, “America’s First Freedom Rider: Elizabeth Jennings, Chester A. Arthur, and the Early Fight for Civil Rights” (Lyons Press, 2019).

ON HER WAY TO CHURCH

On July 16, 1854, Elizabeth Jennings and her friend Sarah Adams were on their way to the Second Avenue Congregational Church, where Jennings, 27, played the organ.

The day was so sweltering that people were suffering from heat stroke and businesses were shut down, Mikorenda said.

Mikorenda estimated it was about a 2-mile walk to the church from her Church Street home, a trip made worse by the conditions of the streets.

“Back then it wasn’t like you had sidewalks and running paths; the streets were horrible,” he said, adding the paths could be filled with manure. “So they [got] halfway there … and they said ‘it’s too hot, the [streetcar] is coming, let’s get on that,’ ” Mikorenda said.

At the time, all New York public transportation was privately owned and Black people were rarely allowed to use it, according to the New York Transit Museum. The streetcars resembled elongated horse-drawn carriages that ran on rails, and according to Mikorenda, could accommodate 12 to 28 people.

As the horse-drawn streetcar approached, Jennings and Adams quickly jumped in, but were met by the “irascible” conductor, Edwin Moss, according to Mikorenda.

“He was obviously a prejudiced person, and at first he says ‘you got to get off, you know you’re not allowed on here,’ ” Mikorenda recounted.

Jennings and Adams would not budge and insisted on riding in the streetcar. Moss turned to the passengers, asking if any of them wanted the two women to get off, but was met with silence.

He conceded and let them remain on the streetcar, but not before belittling them some more and threatening to throw them off if they caused “any problem.”

OFF, ON AND OFF AGAIN

Jennings let him have it, according to a newspaper account at the time.

“I answered again and told him I was a respectable person, born and raised in New York, did not know where he was born, that I had never been insulted while going to church, and that he was a good-for-nothing, impudent fellow for insulting decent persons while on their way to work,” Jennings stated in testimony read at a community meeting and published in the New York Daily Tribune three days after the incident.

After that, Moss, along with the streetcar’s driver, forcefully knocked Adams and Jennings off, forcing the latter headfirst into the street.

Jennings leaped back onto the car once more, leaving Adams behind. Moss let her stay, but directed the driver to go as fast as possible to find a police officer.

“They’re in a pretty deserted part of town, and they find a cop,” Mikorenda said. “The cop pushes her off a second time, pushing [with] the wood billy club, and she’s left in the middle of nowhere.”

WORD SPREAD FAST

Jennings may have been bruised, but she would not be beaten down. Word of her assault spread throughout the Black community, where outrage and support for her quickly grew.

There was a public protest at her church the next day, during which her account of what happened was read on her behalf, according to a 1990 article by John Hewitt about Jennings’ life published in the journal New York History.

In addition, noted orator and abolitionist Frederick Douglass publicized her story in his newspaper, Frederick Douglass’ Paper.

Support for Jennings extended “as far as San Francisco,” Hewitt wrote, where “The Young Men’s Association there voted unanimously to condemn the conduct” of the driver.

HIRING CHESTER A. ARTHUR

Jennings’ father, Thomas, a prominent civil rights leader, decided to sue Moss, the driver and the Third Avenue Railroad Co. on behalf of his daughter.

“So he goes to the best law firm that he thinks that handles this kind of thing, which is [Culver, Parker and Arthur],” said Mikorenda.

Firm partner Erastus D. Culver was too busy (and too expensive) for Jennings, so the case was passed along to a 24-year-old lawyer who had only recently passed the bar: Future U.S. President Chester A. Arthur.

Despite his age, Arthur already had a history defending civil rights, including writing an antislavery essay while in college, and “began to pursue the case with vigor,” wrote Hewitt.

“Nobody thought that she would win . . . and there [were] a lot of people there because, they said, ‘This is like watching David and Goliath,’ ” Mikorenda said.

During the trial, Arthur cited an 1824 New York statute stating owners of carriages traveling on turnpikes and public highways are liable “for all injuries and damages done by any person in the employment of such owner, or owners, as a driver, while driving such carriage.”

Despite the perceived odds, Jennings won the lawsuit in 1855. She was awarded $250 (equivalent to more than $9,300 today), plus $22.50 in costs.

“But more than that, it was the rights that were established that, as the judge put it there, ‘colored persons,’ as long as they are sober and not contagious . . . are allowed to be on any streetcar,” Mikorenda explained.

Energized by the unexpected win, Thomas Jennings saw an opportunity to challenge streetcar companies that refused to integrate. He helped form a civil rights organization, The Legal Association, to wage more fights against segregation in New York City’s public transit. By the 1860s, the companies had “all capitulated,” Mikorenda said.

ALMOST LOST TO TIME

Mikorenda wanted everyone to remember that Jennings’ story is not just a part of Black history, but American history as a whole.

“The title [of my book is] ‘America’s First Freedom Rider.’ This is a story for everybody,” he said.

Despite her impact on racial justice at the time, Jennings is largely unknown.

Mikorenda theorized that the Civil War, which began in 1861, overshadowed her tale. She also did not have surviving direct descendants to speak of her accomplishments.

The author said he only stumbled across Jennings’ story while researching 19th century baseball players and trolleys. In 2019, New York City first lady Chirlane McCray announced plans to erect a statue of Jennings near Grand Central Station.

Billy Moss, president of the Islip-Smithtown NAACP chapter, described Jennings’ story as “an example for each and every citizen, each and every resident, that we must engage our laws, our systems, to make sure that equality is achieved.”

KINDERGARTEN FOUNDER

Mikorenda said that as he learned more about Jennings and her family — including how her father was the first African American patent holder for inventing a form of dry cleaning — he described her story as “getting better and better.”

He credited Hewitt for providing him with the base information of her life, which also included founding the first kindergarten for Black children and, years after the streetcar incident, marrying Charles Graham. Jennings died in 1901.