Augusta may have known that in 1863, Sumner had persuaded Congress to amend some streetcar charters to hold “that no person shall be excluded from the cars on account of color.” To circumvent the spirit of Sumner’s provision, however, some streetcar companies offered separate cars to Black passengers. The corporate evasion of Sumner’s provision was effectively a form of proto–Jim Crow. By limiting Black Washingtonians to inferior streetcars that came along less frequently than those for whites, streetcar companies were effectively imposing a badge of inferiority that hearkened back to the days
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