ELIZABETH JENNINGS - AMERICA'S FIRST ROSA PARKS

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  When we think of a Black person in history who finally said enough is enough, I am not giving up my seat on public transportation, the first person that comes to mind is Rosa Parks. Actually there have been at least four other people besides Parks that have that distinction. Claudette Colvin, Homer Plessy, Ida B. Wells, and Elizabeth Jennings. Three of the five are lost to history. The only reason we know about Homer Plessy is because of the famous Supreme Court case in 1896 called Plessy vs. Ferguson which Homer ended up losing. This case would legalize segregation in the U.S. until the famous Brown vs. the Board of Education ruling in 1954. Not until the 1964 Civil Rights Act would legal segregation die the permanent death that it deserved. Elizabeth Jennings holds the distinction of being the first black person to fight for her seat. This incident, though lost to history, would lead to the desegregation of public transportation in New York.

 Elizabeth was born either in 1827 or 1830. Her paternal grandfather fought in the Continental Army commanded by George Washington. Elizabeth's father was the first person to be issued a patent on a new method for dry cleaning clothes. She would become a teacher although she was not allowed to be in the same graduation ceremony as the Whites. On Sunday July 16, 1854 Elizabeth was ejected from an all White horse drawn trolley. She was an organist at the First Congregational Colored Church and was running late. Elizabeth and a friend boarded a Whites only trolley and was told by the conductor that they could ride only if there were no objections by the White passengers. The conductor then changed his mind, although it was not apparent that anyone objected. When she protested he claimed that the trolley was full. She could see that it wasn't. A Blacks only trolley pulled up but it was full. She again refused to leave the trolley and the conductor tried to remove her by force. Clinging to her seat she struggled to stay on the trolley. The conductor and the driver both tried to remove her but without success.  Elizabeth continued to resist and it was only after a policeman arrived that they were able to remove her by force.  Her dress was soiled and she was slightly injured as they threw her, and her friend, off of the trolley.

 Elizabeth filed a lawsuit and won her case the following year of 1855. Her lawyer, who was recruited with the help of her father's abolitionist friends, was the 26 year old future Republican president Chester Alan Arthur. This ended segregation of public transportation in New York exactly one hundred years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus. In 2007 the street where this incident occurred in New York was renamed Elizabeth Jennings Place due to the lobbying efforts of local school children. Elizabeth Jennings died on June 5, 1901 at the age of 74. 

  

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