White Racism: Streetcar Boycott and the Brownsville Raid
In the early 1900s numerous public transportation boycotts took place across the country. These boycotts were carried out by African Americans to protest Jim Crow laws on public transportation which included streetcars. Unknown to many, San Antonio has a streetcar line that extended from the East Side to the West Side and was affectionately known as the “Africa to Mexico Streetcar Line.” Faced with mounting white supremacist terrorist actions, transportation companies were obligated to provide segregated seating with whites generally being allowed to sit in the front section while Blacks were forced to the rear.
In 1904, the San Antonio City Council was pressured by white supremacists to enact Jim Crow seating arrangements on the Nolan Street line. Several Black men were arrested when they attempted to convince others not to ride the train. The streetcar track line went up Nolan Street, and part of the track actually went through the historic Dittmar Lumber Yard just west of Cherry Street. This explains why the width of Nolan Street was much larger than most East Side streets as a wider street would be needed to accommodate the tracks. Out of fear of white violence most Blacks obeyed the segregated policies of seating to ensure some level of safety. However, when white customers violated the Jim Crow ordinance by sitting in the back, bringing with them smoking and rowdy disruptive behavior, Blacks went into action. Blacks saw this as an opportunity to challenge Jim Crow law. Don’t ever believe people that say San Antonio was not a racist town. It was just as racist as any Mississippi town in many ways.
The San Antonio City Council eventually created a false flag remedy with a system that allowed Blacks to sit where they wanted, but they had to physically move a “Colored Section” sign as whites began to fill up the front of the train. This arrangement forced Blacks to participate in their own degradation and upheld the tradition of white supremacy. According to Smallwood (2009), the history of slavery, racism, and racial injustice can be traced to numerous events poisoning the nation for years and centuries. These historical events speak to the lasting continuation and legacy of white supremacy and the civil rights struggle that would oppose it.
After the Streetcar boycott in San Antonio, another racist incident developed in Brownsville, Texas. The Brownsville affair, also known as the Brownsville Raid, was a case of racial discrimination that took place south of San Antonio in 1906. It was the result of white residents of Brownsville, Texas, harboring white supremacist hatred toward the Black Soldiers, who were serving in a segregated unit at Fort Brown. The members of the African-American 25th Infantry Regiment were accused by the white racist residents of the town of contributing to the death of a white bartender. He was killed and a white police officer was wounded by gunshots one night. As was typical in apartheid Texas, evidence was planted against the men, despite the fact that their commanders stated that the soldiers had been in the barracks all night. All of the black troops were ordered to be dishonorably discharged by President Theodore Roosevelt. The 1900s was a time seething with white supremacy. There was no democracy for Black, Brown, and Indigenous people. Hatred against people of color ruled the legal system and social interactions. The early 1900s was a time not too long after the Civil War and the white supremacists were still angry about losing official slavery and some of their status.
