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Clara Belle Williams Franklin 1856 - 1945  undated photograph Black Archives of Mid-America Kansas City, Missouri On
Monday, August 23, 1875, just a few weeks after her 19th birthday,
Clara boarded a train in Denison and requested a seat in the rear car,
designated by the Texas Central Railroad as the "ladies car." It
differed from the other passenger cars by its customary absence of
smoking and swearing. The brakeman and acting conductor, Tom
Foley, denied her request and offered her a seat in the next-to-last
car instead. Clara refused the offer and got off the train.
On Tuesday Clara had Mr. Foley arrested for violating the Civil Rights Bill of 1875.  The
bill had been passed by Congress less than six months earlier. It
provided that all citizens "shall be entitled to the full and equal
enjoyment" of, among other things, "public conveyances."
Violations of the act were punishable by fines of $500 to $1000,
or jail terms of 30 days to one year. Guilty persons were also
required to pay aggrieved parties the sum of $500. The case was tried in Federal court in Tyler, Texas, in November 1875, less than three months after Foley's arrest. By this time Clara Williams had been hired as a public school teacher in Denison. The Prosecutor was Andrew Jackson Evans (1832-1897), a former state legislator, district judge, and Unionist. The defense team was led by Richard Bennett Hubbard, Jr. (1832-1901), the sitting Lieutenant Governor of Texas and a former Confederate Officer. He went on to become Governor the following year, after Richard Coke resigned to become a United States Senator.  Denying
a defense motion to dismiss on the grounds that the law was
unconstitutional, the judge allowed teh case to go forward to the jury.
 Hubbard
was a gifted orator, sometimed referred to as the "Demosthenes of
Texas." The audience in the courtroom had to be cautioned several
times by the judge for outbursts of applause during his argument. Prosecutor Evans had his moments too. The audience laughed when he read from the Bible (Acts, Chapter 8) about Peter and the Ethiopian riding together in a chariot. He argued that chariots were the first great common carriers of both races. Upon conclusion of his closing argument, the jury retired for twenty minutes before returning a verdict in favor of the defendant.  Clara's
case did not go, as predicted by the Topeka newspaper, to the Supreme
Court. The Civil Rights Bill of 1875 was eventually declared
unconstitutional by that court in another case in 1883. Congress
would not pass another civil rights bill until 1957. If the white townspeople of Denison harbored any ill feelings towards Clara in the wake of her complaint, it was not evident in the local newspapers. Although her father, Dave Williams, was frequently criticized for alleged troublemaking, including an accusation that he was behind his daughter's "put-up job" of a criminal suit against the railroad, reports of Clara's performance as a teacher were consistently favorable and complimentary. Her students were impressive in their end-of-year examinations, and they seemed "to be warmly attached to her." The concensus of editorial opinion was that Denison was lucky to have her.  Biography Index African-American Biography Index African-American Research Susan Hawkins © 2024 If you find any of Grayson County TXGenWeb links inoperable, please send me a message. |