February is Black History Month in Canada – The 2024 theme for Black History Month is: “Black Excellence: A Heritage to Celebrate; a Future to Build”. As we celebrate the rich past and present contributions and accomplishments of Black people in Canada, we take a look at some prominent stories and figures in North American transportation history.
Elizabeth Jennings Graham
Across North America, public transportation is now generally provided with equal opportunity to all those who wish to access it. This was not the always the case. The story of Rosa Parks and her role in the Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama is well known today. Less well known is the story of Elizabeth Jennings Graham and the stand she took one hundred years before Rosa Parks on a New York streetcar.
In New York City in 1854 – 170 years ago this year – some horse drawn streetcars had “Colored Persons Allowed” signs, but many did not. A 24 year-old schoolteacher at the time, Elizabeth went aboard a streetcar without such a sign to go to the First Colored Congregational Church. When asked to leave by the conductor, she bravely took a stand and resisted being forced off. Mass protests were held at her treatment. Elizabeth ultimately filed a lawsuit against the Third Avenue Railway Company and won. Within six years, all of New York City’s street and rail cars were desegregated.
Read more about Elizabeth Jennings Graham here.
Canada’s Sleeping Car Porters
Canada has its own history of rail transportation and struggles for equality. This history includes the four Collins brothers, including the eldest Frank, who fought for labour and civil rights in Canada’s rail industries. Frank and his brothers grew up in Strathcona on East Georgia Street in Vancouver. They began their struggle with the backing of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first Black labour union in North America, when it expanded into Canada in 1942. They helped to create fairer and more equitable rights for rail workers across our nation and a better life for many people for generations to come. You can find out more about the Collins brothers by watching this two minute video, “Sleeping Car Porters”.
