Re: Black/Asian/Hispanic passengers on a train in 40s & 50s?
Author: Tom McCann
Date: 01-26-2013 - 08:33
Railroads operating in the states that enforced their "Jim Crow" laws restricted their colored passengers to designated parts of coaches, or to full coaches specifically designated as "colored only".
Some of the streamliner era examples include the coaches built for Rock Island's "Choctaw Rocket", which had the car seating split in half and provided separate vestibules and rest rooms for colored and white passengers.
The "Nancy Hanks II", previously referenced, had "partitioned" coaches built for its 1947 streamlining, and in practice would also use the passenger seating in the combine for colored passengers. The Southern did the same thing on its "Southerner" and "Tennessean" streamliners.