User:Orlady/Stuff I'm working on/Nashville streetcar boycott

The Nashville streetcar boycott of 1905–1907 was an organized action by African Americans in protest against the segregation of the streetcar system in Nashville, Tennessee.

In 1905, the Tennessee General Assembly enacted a law to segregate Nashville's streetcar system. Local black leaders were determined to protest the law through a boycott of the public transportation system. When the law first went into effect in July, the boycott was effective, as few blacks were riding streetcars.

R. H. Boyd, then head of the local chapter of the National Negro Business League, joined with other prominent citizens to promote and formalize the boycott. Because many blacks needed the streetcar system to travel to and from work, it proved difficult to maintain participation in the boycott. To help their fellow black citizens avoid using Nashville's public streetcars, Boyd joined with lawyer James C. Napier and funeral home director Preston Taylor to establish a rival black-owned public transit system, the Union Transportation Company. The new company began service on September 29, 1905, operating five steam buses. These vehicles lacked the power needed to climb some of the city's hills, so the company acquired a fleet of 14 electric buses. To avoid buying electricity from a white-owned utility, the transportation company powered the buses with a generator in the basement of the Publishing Board building. The company had limited financial resources, was not able to effectively meet the transportation needs of Nashville's geographically dispersed black population, and was handicapped by a tax on electric streetcars that the city of Nashville enacted in 1906 specifically to combat the black-owned business. The Union Transportation Company went out of business within a year, by which time the boycott had been largely abandoned. Although the boycott was ultimately unsuccessful, its long duration was one source of inspiration for bus boycotts in the 1950s.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/829102 - Law, Society, Identity, and the Making of the Jim Crow South: Travel and Segregation on Tennessee Railroads, 1875-1905 Kenneth W. Mack

http://ww2.tnstate.edu/library/digital/union.htm - or archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20100602105623/http://www.tnstate.edu/library/digital/union.htm - UNION TRANSPORTATION COMPANY (1905-1907)

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2711607 - Negro Boycotts of Jim Crow Streetcars in Tennessee, August Meier and Elliott Rudwick -- also http://www.bsos.umd.edu/aasp/chateauvert/southernb.pdf

http://www.tnstate.edu/library/digital/nashv.htm - Also archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20100602110059/http://www.tnstate.edu/library/digital/nashv.htm - NASHVILLE'S STREETCAR BOYCOTT (1905-1907)

http://www.nashvillepost.com/news/2007/7/6/nashville_now_and_then_off_the_rails - Nashville now and then: Off the rails

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/partners/early/e_segregation_public.html - Living with Segregation: On Public Transportation (PBS American Experience)

http://books.google.com/books?id=TTha3NavN-sC&pg=PA106&lpg=PA106&dq=Nashville+streetcar+boycott&source=bl&ots=yXiPRKjoFU&sig=_Ge1625ZK52QIcy0ySFrFwqZBn4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=clQ6UcDwNujJ0wGo-IHQDA&ved=0CGoQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=Nashville%20streetcar%20boycott&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=zb-1U7aWakUC&pg=PA350&lpg=PA350&dq=Nashville+streetcar+boycott&source=bl&ots=o0f0dOH2Zl&sig=rMhPHd-X35x4oe7p3Z6xdtXSu3w&hl=en&sa=X&ei=eVU6UYzyIc-z0QH7hoCYDw&ved=0CEkQ6AEwAThk#v=onepage&q=Nashville%20streetcar%20boycott&f=false

See also: Richard Henry Boyd