Twisting The Jim Crow Law.”
August 24, 1907
Summary
The Planet complains about the inconvenience of “Jim-Crow” laws and the way it negatively affects white and black people.
Transcription
“Twisting The Jim Crow Law.”
The “Jim Crow” Street-car Law is causing no end of embarrassment and an unlimited amount of trouble. The Richmond, Va. Evening Journal of the 20th inst. while declaring that it likes the “dish” makes a very wry face at each gulp of the nauseating mixture.
Under the caption of “Twisting the Jim Crow Law,” it says:
“We approve the Jim Crow law as in the interest of peace and for the benefit of both races, but we insist that in its enforcement the car authorities should exhibit some common sense-else trouble will undoubtedly ensue. A serious row on Broad Street and Oakwood car threatened a night or so ago in a controversy over a seat by a Negro, wherein as it seems to us, the passenger was entirely in the right. The Negro took the third seat from the rear, which is the foremost seat set apart for his race. All the forward seats were crowded with whites in the progress of the trip and at a point where other white people desired to get on, the conductor asked the Negro to move to the second rearmost seat to make room. He might have moved through courtesy. That is not the point. He could have stood upon his indisputable right to remain where he was. The conductor informed him that when he got on the car he took the proper seat, but that it became improper when enough white persons boarded it to make his seat necessary for their accommodation. It took three orders to get the man to move. If this is the construction placed upon the Jim Crow law by those having the streetcar system under management it is beyond either the letter or spirit of the statue: it is beyond common sense or fair dealing. It is grotesquely absurd.”
It continued:
“Let’s put the shoe on the other foot and see if the pinch pleases. Suppose the last three seats are full of Negroes and in the next seat is a white man. Suppose more Negroes wish to get on. Will the white man be ordered to move forward for their accommodation? If not, why not? It is promotive of all sorts of inconveniences and disputes and injustice for the character of seats to be changed en route. It is puerile for a seat to be for a black man between Eighth and Ninth Streets. The Jim Crow law is presumed, like all laws, to be executed by men with gray matter in their heads and not with skulls full of lubber.
“The rules under which the conductors are required to act should be revised at once so as to square with the dictates of justice and reasonableness, or the suspicion may get a broad that somebody is trying to administer to an excellent law a solar plexus blow beneath the belt.”
This is the logical result of carrying race prejudice to the platform of a street-car. This service was never intended to take on the convenience of the regular railway service, but is a cheap mode of transportation for the masses. Some people ride two blocks. It is utterly impossible then to satisfy either white or colored passengers and comply with the provisions of the law. The whole system as now practiced is at war with common sense and will result in no end of embarrassment and annoyance to the people whom it was expected to accommodate.
The service on the passenger trains of the railroads of the Southland is not all that it should be and it has tended to anger and aggravate about as many white people as it has colored ones. The colored people are somewhat amused over the streetcar situation in this city for the reason that it has set one white man warring against the other.
Many colored people are using the nice brick sidewalks, while the cars go whizzing by with just enough colored people thereon to cause trouble and to keep white folks “cussing” each other as a result of their own folly.
The “Jim Crow” Street-car Law is causing no end of embarrassment and an unlimited amount of trouble. The Richmond, Va. Evening Journal of the 20th inst. while declaring that it likes the “dish” makes a very wry face at each gulp of the nauseating mixture.
Under the caption of “Twisting the Jim Crow Law,” it says:
“We approve the Jim Crow law as in the interest of peace and for the benefit of both races, but we insist that in its enforcement the car authorities should exhibit some common sense-else trouble will undoubtedly ensue. A serious row on Broad Street and Oakwood car threatened a night or so ago in a controversy over a seat by a Negro, wherein as it seems to us, the passenger was entirely in the right. The Negro took the third seat from the rear, which is the foremost seat set apart for his race. All the forward seats were crowded with whites in the progress of the trip and at a point where other white people desired to get on, the conductor asked the Negro to move to the second rearmost seat to make room. He might have moved through courtesy. That is not the point. He could have stood upon his indisputable right to remain where he was. The conductor informed him that when he got on the car he took the proper seat, but that it became improper when enough white persons boarded it to make his seat necessary for their accommodation. It took three orders to get the man to move. If this is the construction placed upon the Jim Crow law by those having the streetcar system under management it is beyond either the letter or spirit of the statue: it is beyond common sense or fair dealing. It is grotesquely absurd.”
It continued:
“Let’s put the shoe on the other foot and see if the pinch pleases. Suppose the last three seats are full of Negroes and in the next seat is a white man. Suppose more Negroes wish to get on. Will the white man be ordered to move forward for their accommodation? If not, why not? It is promotive of all sorts of inconveniences and disputes and injustice for the character of seats to be changed en route. It is puerile for a seat to be for a black man between Eighth and Ninth Streets. The Jim Crow law is presumed, like all laws, to be executed by men with gray matter in their heads and not with skulls full of lubber.
“The rules under which the conductors are required to act should be revised at once so as to square with the dictates of justice and reasonableness, or the suspicion may get a broad that somebody is trying to administer to an excellent law a solar plexus blow beneath the belt.”
This is the logical result of carrying race prejudice to the platform of a street-car. This service was never intended to take on the convenience of the regular railway service, but is a cheap mode of transportation for the masses. Some people ride two blocks. It is utterly impossible then to satisfy either white or colored passengers and comply with the provisions of the law. The whole system as now practiced is at war with common sense and will result in no end of embarrassment and annoyance to the people whom it was expected to accommodate.
The service on the passenger trains of the railroads of the Southland is not all that it should be and it has tended to anger and aggravate about as many white people as it has colored ones. The colored people are somewhat amused over the streetcar situation in this city for the reason that it has set one white man warring against the other.
Many colored people are using the nice brick sidewalks, while the cars go whizzing by with just enough colored people thereon to cause trouble and to keep white folks “cussing” each other as a result of their own folly.
About this article
Source
Location on Page
Lower Left Quadrant
Topic
Contributed By
Benton Camper
Citation
“Twisting The Jim Crow Law.”,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed October 9, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/876.