Until Justice Be Done: America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction

by Kate Masur

In the spring of 1866, he sued the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad for refusing him access to the first-class car. In a case heard before a local judge, the company insisted that it had the right to make and enforce regulations it believed necessary to govern the road. There was little novelty here. Americans were accustomed to the idea that governments—or, in this case, corporations—were entitled to prioritize good order and public peace over individual rights, and many saw race-based discrimination as an entirely acceptable form of regulation. Did the Civil Rights Act invalidate railroad companies’ right to separate customers by race if they deemed it necessary to keep the line running? The Baltimore court did not think so and ruled in favor of the railroad.46 The truth was that the 1866 Civil Rights Act did not clearly indicate whether public accommodations like railroads were included in its purview. Another federal law, passed nine years later, would attempt to remedy that problem.