Drawing the Line

Shortly after the American Civil War (1861–1865), a train snaked through the rolling mountains of Tennessee. As the locomotive thundered across the hills and valleys, a young girl sat alone in the finest car on the train. She was polite and impeccably dressed, but that did not stop a passenger from demanding that she be removed to the smoking car—a filthy cabin dominated by men of all sorts. She may have had a first-class ticket; however, her Black skin nearly relegated her to a second-class ride. The girl's predicament was resolved only after her hot-tempered father returned and threatened to shoot the conductor if they attempted to move his daughter to the smoking car. That little girl was Mary “Mollie” Church, later known as Mary Church Terrell, one of the future leaders of the NAACP. Her father was the influential Robert Church, perhaps the first African American millionaire from the South

Daughter · Girl · Politeness · Spanish Civil War · Threatened species · American History and Culture · Cultural History and Identity Formation · Race, History, and American Society