George R. Percy

In the record (1)

1. 1906

   The B.C.&A. is prosecuted for running the Ocean City express without a Jim Crow car — and the grand jury takes the case.

   On 5 July 1906 George R. Percy, an ex-member of the Maryland legislature, swore out writs before Justice Turpin of Salisbury against the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway and its conductor Frank Bowen for failure to enforce the state's 1904 railway segregation act on the early morning express from Ocean City to Baltimore. "It has been the habit of the Railroad Company not to run a Jim Crow car on the early morning train, known as the 'Baltimore Flyer,' and the early evening train from Baltimore, known as the 'Ocean City Flyer,' claiming these trains as 'through' trains within the meaning of the law" — but both stopped at Berlin, Salisbury and Easton, and Percy argued they were therefore not through trains. On the morning of Monday 1 July there were four colored passengers from Ocean City riding in the cars with the white passengers; Percy told the conductor he had no right to allow it, and the conductor answered that he was running a through train. At the preliminary hearing on 4 September Justice Turpin held the company for the grand jury and dismissed the charge against the conductor, "as the judge held that he was not responsible for not separating the whites from the colored, because the company had not furnished him the cars for that purpose."

   The first Ocean City Jim Crow case in this record is not a Black passenger suing for a seat — it is a white ex-legislator prosecuting a railroad for letting four Black passengers keep theirs.

   Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic Railway

   Source · checked 2026-08-06