ELIZABETH JENNINGS HAD A CHOICE TO MAKE. Most people probably would have backed down. Most people, when physically assaulted by someone much bigger and stronger, would retreat.
But Elizabeth Jennings was not “most people.”
To everyone’s amazement, she got up and returned to the streetcar. Her friend, Sarah, stayed behind, watching from the sidewalk.
Once on the streetcar Elizabeth found a seat.
And she sat down.
The conductor reacted with fury. As Elizabeth recalled, “He said, ‘You will sweat for this!’ Then he told the driver to drive as fast as he could and not take another passenger in the car, to drive until he saw an officer or a Station House.”
At the corner of Walker Street and the Bowery (known today as the Bowery and Canal Street) a policeman was spotted, and the streetcar came to a halt. Elizabeth stayed where she was, but she could hear the conversation.
“The conductor told* that his orders from the agent** were to admit colored persons if the passengers did not object, but if they did, not to let them ride,” she wrote.
“The officer, without listening to anything I had to say, thrust me out, and then pushed me, and tauntingly told me to get redress* if I could,” she continued. “The conductor gave me [his] name and [the] number of his car; he wrote his name as Moss and the streetcar, No. 7, but I looked and saw No. 6 on the back of the car. After dragging me off the car he drove me away like a dog, saying not to be talking there and raising a mob or fight.”
The streetcar continued on its way, leaving Elizabeth dazed, bruised, and battered.
She got to her feet and brushed herself off. Because Sarah had not gotten back on the streetcar a second time, Elizabeth was alone. After catching her breath, she began walking slowly down Walker Street toward home, which was about three-quarters of a mile away.
“A German gentleman followed,” Elizabeth wrote. “He told me he saw the whole transaction in the street as he was passing” and offered to be a witness. On a piece of paper the man, who was a bookseller on Pearl Street, wrote down his name and address so that she could contact him later.
When she arrived at home, Elizabeth’s parents were shocked at the sight of her. They sent for a doctor immediately. The doctor, whose name we do not know, arrived quickly. He examined her and concluded that she had suffered many bruises, cuts, and scratches and probably broken bones from being twice removed by force from the streetcar, first, when she was dragged off the car by the conductor and driver and a second time, when she was pushed by the policeman. He told her that she must have complete bed rest. Elizabeth’s father instructed her to write down, in her own words, an account of what had happened, with as much detail as possible. Propped up in bed, Elizabeth wrote a letter describing her version of events.
Then her father left the house in a hurry. With Elizabeth’s written statement in his hand, he disappeared into the city.