Hattip to my friend Jay Anderson for advising me of this tidbit of history. Today is the 178th birthday of Mary Custis Lee, the eldest daughter of Robert E. Lee. She could be a pill. Described by her siblings as “bossy” and “stern”, she asked only one thing out of life: her own way. She did not suffer those she considered fools gladly, and she was never shy about reminding people that she was the eldest daughter of Robert E. Lee.
On June 13, 1902 she and her black maid had sat down on an Alexandria street car, laden with packages. Miss Lee was now in her 67th year, so no doubt she was tired. She and her maid sat in the back of the street car. A “Jim Crow” ordinance had recently been passed in Alexandria , and among other odious provisions it mandated racial segregation on street cars, with blacks relegated to the back.
The conductor Thomas Chauncey explained the law to her and asked her to move. She did not. When a black man boarded the street car, Chauncey advised her that she was occupying a seat to which he was entitled, and Chauncey threatened her with arrest. She still refused to move. When she got off the streetcar a few blocks later she was met by two police officers who put her under arrest. Word spread of her arrest. Men protested at the police station against their holding Miss Lee, some of the men doubtless having served under her father. She was released.
She did not bother showing up for her trial on June 14. The bond of $5.00 that a friend had posted for her was forfeited.
Was Mary just being Mary, a fairly contrary lady who wasn’t going to be pushed around by an officious conductor, or was this a protest against the new ordinance? No one knows for sure. However when she was asked to move perhaps this incident from the life of her great father came into her mind:
From “April 1865: the Month that Saved America”
Regardless of whether Miss Lee was just being ornery and too tired to move, was ignorant of the new law (as she claimed), or was making a political statement, what stands out to me about this incident is that she obviously didn’t mind sitting down next to black folks in the “colored” section of the streetcar.
If the daughter of the South’s most beloved son could sit next to black people, then why couldn’t others? That it took another 60 years to get rid of Jim Crow is a travesty.
This reminds me of a story about my late Aunt Mariana (my mother’s younger sister) while traveling with her family as a child during the early 1950s. The family made a stop at a service station to use the bathroom. After everyone got back in the car, no one had seen Mariana. Suddenly, she came walking out of the bathroom marked “Colored”. When the family asked her why she had used that bathroom, she responded that she thought it said “Children”. Another stroke scored against Jim Crow, inadvertent as it may have been.
Great. I loved the story and I Absolutely Love The Photo!
Reminds me of lovely feisty women I knew.
And don’t you wonder what she and her maid servant talked about to each other during that ride– I’ll bet it was witty. God bless their souls and may they both pray for us all today that we may be feisty too when it is called for.
I remember, fifty-three years ago, traveling from my Army base by bus to spend leave back home in New Jersey, spending an enjoyable journey talking with the black lady with whom I shared a seat in the back of the bus. The bus stopped at a road house just south of DC and I was surprised to see a large sign indicating separate seating for whites and colored. Well, I took a seat in the white section with those of my own race mostly dressed in casual clothing at best and downright scruffy at worst, and apart from the black travelers mostly dressed in their Sunday-go-to-meeting best clothes. I recall wishing I had the guts to sit with my seatmate but then I’d probably have caused a ruckus and maybe had my head handed to me. Miss Lee had more courage.