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Description
For a shamefully long period -- a whole century after the Union defeated the Confederacy in the Civil War and the 13th Amendment ended slavery -- black and white Americans were officially segregated in many aspects of life, including transportation. After the Supreme Court's Plessy vs. Ferguson decision permitted segregation so long as the facilities were "separate but equal," railways such as the Southern Railway, which covered much of the Deep South, built segregated "Jim Crow" cars similar to the apartheid-era coaches in South Africa. Heavyweight steel coach No. 1211 was one of the Jim Crow cars, and was built in 1922 with less comfortable seating and smaller bathrooms in the black section than in the white section. The Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board decision and the Montgomery bus boycott set off by the arrest of Rosa Parks increased the pressure for nationwide integration, and segregation in public places was banned by the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The Southern Railway therefore retired coach No. 1211, which is now parked in the Bob Julian roundhouse at the North Carolina Transportation Museum in Spencer. It stands as a reminder of how recently racism was part of American law, and how much work still remains to integrate the country, so I felt rather annoyed to see visitors drawing their own names on this coach rather than contemplating its importance in history.

Description
For a shamefully long period -- a whole century after the Union defeated the Confederacy in the Civil War and the 13th Amendment ended slavery -- black and white Americans were officially segregated in many aspects of life, including transportation. After the Supreme Court's Plessy vs. Ferguson decision permitted segregation so long as the facilities were "separate but equal," railways such as the Southern Railway, which covered much of the Deep South, built segregated "Jim Crow" cars similar to the apartheid-era coaches in South Africa. Heavyweight steel coach No. 1211 was one of the Jim Crow cars, and was built in 1922 with less comfortable seating and smaller bathrooms in the black section than in the white section. The Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board decision and the Montgomery bus boycott set off by the arrest of Rosa Parks increased the pressure for nationwide integration, and segregation in public places was banned by the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The Southern Railway therefore retired coach No. 1211, which is now parked in the Bob Julian roundhouse at the North Carolina Transportation Museum in Spencer. It stands as a reminder of how recently racism was part of American law, and how much work still remains to integrate the country, so I felt rather annoyed to see visitors drawing their own names on this coach rather than contemplating its importance in history.