Before Rosa Parks In That Place Was Charlotte L. Chocolate-Brown Inward 1863 San Francisco

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 youthful Charlotte Brown was from a prominent African American identify unit of measurement inwards San Francisco, California when she refused a conductor's necessitate that she take away herself from a streetcar because "colored persons were non allowed to ride." This was on Apr 17, 1863, most a hundred years earlier Rosa Parks challenged world streetcar segregation inwards Montgomery, Alabama inwards 1954.

In 1863, San Francisco had the largest Black population inwards the dry ground of California. It was the era of the California Gold Rush that drew many entrepreneurs to its western shore. African Americans migrants to the portion were faced with a social climate that included a prohibition against Earth vote. They could non ride world transportation, nor could they role Earth library. Like other African Americans across the nation, they could solely attend segregated world schools.

On Apr 17, 1863, Brown had a doctor's twenty-four hours of the month that was the ground for her boarding the Omnibus Railroad streetcar. She walked onto the horse-drawn streetcar together with took a topographic point midway inwards the car. The conductor walked downwards the aisle to collect rider tickets. Brown wrote that she "handed him my ticket together with he refused to select it. He said that colored persons were non allowed to ride." Instead of accepting the ticket, the conductor demanded that Brown take away herself from the streetcar. When Brown refused, she was forcibly removed yesteryear the streetcar attendant.

Charlotte Brown's father, possessor of a livery service, helped protect fugitive slaves seeking liberty inwards California. He encouraged her to grapple this handling inwards court. That same year, a constabulary had been passed inwards the California legislature that allowed African Americans to evidence inwards cases involving whites.  Brown's manlike someone bring upwards would convey a lawsuit on her behalf inwards a California court.

The Omnibus Railroad argued that its streetcar conductor was justified inwards his activity because racial segregation was necessary to protect European American women together with children who mightiness move "fearful or repulsed" yesteryear sitting with an African American. This declaration was unsuccessful. The estimate sided with Brown, but the harm laurels was solely five cent -- reimbursement of the toll of the streetcar fare.

Only days later on this courtroom judgment, about other Omnibus streetcar conductor forced Charlotte Brown together with her manlike someone bring upwards from a streetcar. Another lawsuit ensued. In 1864, Judge C. C. Pratt of the twelfth District Court ruled that San Francisco streetcar segregation was illegal, stating inwards his opinion: "It has been already quite equally good long tolerated yesteryear the dominant race to come across with indifference the Negro or mulatto treated equally a brute, insulted, wronged, enslaved, made to vesture a yoke, to shiver earlier white men, to serve him equally a tool, to concur belongings together with life at his will, to give upwards to him his intellect together with conscience, together with to seal his lips together with belie his idea through dread of the white man's power."

Brown was awarded $500 from the jury inwards this instant civil rights case. Without the back upwards of the 14th Amendment -- which was non inwards being at the fourth dimension -- Charlotte Brown challenged racial discrimination. She took a stand upwards against racial judge on the streets of San Francisco, fueling a long tradition of civil rights activism amidst African American women.