History

W. Ashbie Hawkins

Black Baltimore civil-rights attorney, and in 1911-12 the man who took Ocean City's own railroad in front of a Maryland tribunal over segregation. Hawkins complained to the Public Service Commission of Maryland that the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway had given him an inferior stateroom and made him wait until white passengers had eaten before feeding him, on one of its Chesapeake Bay boats. The commission's counsel W. Cabell Bruce upheld its jurisdiction in February 1912; its chairman Philip D. Laird dismissed the complaint the following month, and Hawkins appealed to Circuit Court No. 2 of Baltimore City. He brought the case while sitting as Supreme Chancellor of the Knights of Pythias of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, to which the order elected him at Asbury Park on 12 September 1911. He is better known for the Baltimore residential-segregation ordinance cases and for his 1920 independent run for the United States Senate.

In the record (1)

  1. 1911

    Black Baltimore attorney W. Ashbie Hawkins complains to the Maryland Public Service Commission against the B.C.&A. - Ocean City's railroad - over Jim Crow accommodation on its bay boats.

    In December 1911 W. Ashbie Hawkins, the pioneering Black Baltimore civil-rights lawyer, filed suit against the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway — the company whose rail-and-steamboat line from Baltimore via Claiborne was Ocean City's lifeline — charging discrimination against Black passengers on its Chesapeake Bay steamers Avalon and Joppa: cramped, poorly ventilated segregated cabins, leftover food, and A.M.E. ministers and their wives denied staterooms overnight. The complaints were ultimately dismissed, though the Public Service Commission recommended more equal seating arrangements. FORUM: not a court suit but a complaint to the Public Service Commission of Maryland (org:maryland-public-service-commission), later appealed to Circuit Court No. 2 of Baltimore City in February 1912. ROUTE: the reported decision concerns the CHOPTANK RIVER route, not the steamers Avalon and Joppa. No source read names either vessel. The Avalon/Joppa detail should be removed or attributed to Bogen rather than asserted. DATE OF OUTCOME: the dismissal is March 1912, not 1911. The 1911 event is the complaint being pending. 'the Public Service Commission recommended more equal seating arrangements' is not supported by anything read; it is not in Laird's reported opinion. Drop unless Bogen supports it. ADD: Hawkins was elected Supreme Chancellor of the Knights of Pythias of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres at Asbury Park on 12 September 1911, three months before the complaint - see fact:1911-hawkins-elected-supreme-chancellor.

    Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic RailwayPublic Service Commission of MarylandWilliam Cabell Bruce

    Source · checked 2026-08-11