The Colored Car: Gender, Trauma, and Uncanny Films in the Weimar Republic

Prologue

Prologue xi The history of the struggle for civil rights in the United States—the attempt by African Americans to possess basic rights of American citizenship that were denied to them based upon racial discrimination—can be studied through the progression of lawsuits filed by black passengers challenging segregation, or the separation of blacks and whites, on the nation’s railroads, particularly when traveling in the South. As more railroad tracks were laid across the country during the 1860s, the importance of train travel grew. So much so that by the late 1800s, trains became the primary mode of longdistance travel in the United States until the mid1950s , when cars, buses, and airplanes grew in popularity. It was after 1865—following the end of the Civil War and during the time known as Reconstruction—that African Americans sought to enjoy equal rights as citizens not just in the xii Prologue states and towns where they lived but also when traveling throughout the country. During the nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries, black Americans were generally referred to as “colored.” When traveling in the North, “colored” passengers could sit according to the class or type of ticket they purchased. The problem came when traveling in the South. Black and white travelers could not sit in the same train cars. And if a train ride started in a northern state, when the train entered a southern state—or crossed what was called the Mason-Dixon Line—black riders were made to leave their seats and sit in an all-black or “colored” train car. Over the years, a large number of lawsuits were filed by African American passengers who had been forced—often dragged—from their seats and into segregated cars when traveling on southern rail lines. However, the law of the land was established by the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson. That case held that states had the right to require “separate but equal” seating for black passengers. This segregation was enforced by what were known xiii Prologue as “Jim Crow” laws in the South and extended far beyond separate seating on train cars. Legalized segregation applied to all manner of public facilities including theaters, restrooms, public transportation, and water fountains. However, in northern cities, segregation was not enforced by law. Rather, it existed in practice and tradition, with the end result often manifesting itself not so much in public facilities but in primarily segregated neighborhoods, schools, and churches. The effects of the court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson and the notion of “separate but equal” were far-reaching, leaving very few aspects of American public life untouched. It remained the law in the United States for decades to come. ...