Right to ride : streetcar boycotts and African American citizenship in the era of Plessy v. Ferguson / Blair L.M. Kelley.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-245) and index.

Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- New York : the Antebellum roots of segregation and dissent -- The color line and the ladies' car : segregation on southern rails before Plessy -- Our people, our problem? : Plessy and the divided New Orleans -- Where are our friends? : crumbling alliances and New Orleans streetcar boycott -- Who's to blame? : Maggie Lena Walker, John Mitchell Jr., and the great class debate -- Negroes everywhere are walking : work, women, and the Richmond streetcar boycott -- Battling Jim Crow's buzzards : betrayal and the Savannah streetcar boycott -- Bend with unabated protest: on the meaning of failure -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.

Focusing on three key cities--New Orleans, Richmond, and Savannah--Kelley explores African Americans' organized efforts to resist the passage of segregation laws dividing trains and streetcars by race in the early Jim Crow era. The book forces a reassessment of the timelines of the black freedom struggle, revealing that a period once dismissed as the age of accommodation should in fact be characterized as part of a history of protest and resistance.

Online resource (HeinOnline, viewed July 3, 2019).

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