TRUTH, SOJOURNER DC INDYMEDIA - In 1865, one year after visiting
President Abraham Lincoln in the White House, Sojourner Truth worked
to desegregate the horse car system in Washington, D.C. It was during
one of her attempts to ride a horse drawn streetcar in Washington, DC
that the conductor "seized her with such violence as to injure her
shoulder." Confident that justice would prevail, Truth promptly sued
him, and won. In all, she conducted six "ride-ins." She usually rode
alone, but on two occasions she was accompanied by white, female
abolitionists; one was Laura Haviland, the other was Josephine
Griffing. In one instance, a conductor told Sojourner to get off the
car, or he would throw her off. To which she proudly and forcefully
responded, that she was neither a Marylander nor a Virginian, but
"from the Empire State of New York" and he could throw her off, if he
dared. Two conductors were fired, for their mistreatment of her, and
her persistence encouraged other African Americans to ride the
streetcars, thereby leading to the demise of the "Jim Crow" cars in
Washington. Washington's streetcars remained among the few
unsegregated public places in the city before the civil rights movement.