Racial Discrimination in Transportation

Our Seminar on Transportation Law focuses on a different topic every year. In 2020 we are studying the legal aspects of racial discrimination in transportation:

Class 01: Introduction to Transportation Law

1. Syllabus (posted on Blackboard)
2. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) [1]

Class 02: Interstate Travel

1. Nomination of J. Monroe Johnson to be an Interstate Commerce Commissioner (1949) (through printed page 9) [2]
2. Keys v. Carolina Coach Co., Interstate Commerce Commission, No. MC-C-1564, 64 M.C.C. 769 (1955) [3]
3. NAACP v. St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Co., Interstate Commerce Commission, No. 297 I.C.C. 335 (1955) [4]
4. T. Anthony Bell, The quietly defiant, unlikely fighter: Pfc. Sarah Keys and the fight for justice and humanity (2014) [5]
5. Katie McCabe, Making History in a Segregated Washington: Dovey Johnson Roundtree and Her 45-year Fight for Justice (2011) (printed pages 67 - 97) [6]
6. The Freedom Riders Reunite 50 Years Later, The Oprah Winfrey Show (2011) (41 minutes) [7]
   1. Note: The PBS documentary referenced in this video is The Freedom Riders, PBS American Experience (2011) [8]
7. Regulations Governing Discrimination in Operations of Interstate Motor Common Carriers of Passengers, Interstate Commerce Commission, 26 Federal Register 9166 (September 29, 1961) (PDF page 14) [9]
8. United States v. City of Jackson, 318 F.2d 1 (5th Cir. 1963) [10]
9. The Green Book: Guide to Freedom, Smithsonian Channel (2020) (51 minutes) [11]
   1. Note: You can also view actual green books [12], explore local sites [13], and learn about the search for one of these sites [14]
10. Civil Rights Timeline, Library of Congress (current through 2014) [15]
11. Supreme Court cases
    1. Students with last names A - C: Mitchell v. United States, 313 U.S. 80 (1941) [16]
    2. Students with last names D - L: Morgan v. Virginia, 328 U.S. 373 (1946) [17]
    3. Students with last names M - Re: Henderson v. United States, 339 US. 816 (1950) [18]
    4. Students with last names Rh - Z: Boynton v. Virginia, 364 U.S. 454 (1960) [19]
12. Recommended: Catherine A. Barnes, Journey from Jim Crow: The Desegregation of Southern Transit (1983) [20]

Class 03: Land Use, Housing, Education, and Employment

Relationship to Transportation

1. Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (1974), Introduction (1-21) [21]
2. Jonathan English, Why Did America Give Up on Mass Transit? (Don't Blame Cars.), CityLaw (2018) [22]
3. Robert D. Bullard, Glenn S. Johnson, and Angel O. Torres, Dismantling Transportation Apartheid in the United States Before and After Disasters Strike, ABA Human Rights Magazine (2007) [23]
4. U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, Zoned Out: How School and Residential Zoning Limit Education Opportunity (2019) (appendices are optional) [24]
5. Dustin A. Cable, Racial Dot Map [25]

Governmental Discrimination

1. Deed for lot in Wales Garden in Columbia, SC [26]
   1. Note: Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948) held that the judicial enforcement of restrictive covenants by state courts violates the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment [27]
2. Real estate listings for Columbia, SC [28]
3. "The Color of Law" Details How U.S. Housing Policies Created Segregation, NPR (2017) [29]
   1. Note: The full book is available through our library [30]
4. Mapping Inequality, Redlining in Columbia [31]
   1. Note: You can also view redlined maps of many other communities
5. Joseph A. De Laine, Sr., Things that Happened since Nov. 11, 1949 [32]
6. Staci Leanne Richey, Variations on a Theme: Planning for the Elimination of Black Neighborhoods in Downtown Columbia, South Carolina, 1905-1970 (2004 thesis) (endnotes are optional) [33]
   1. Note: More information on Ward One is available online [34]
7. Edens v. City of Columbia, 228 S.C. 563 (1956) [35]
   1. Note: McNulty v. Owens, 188 S.C. 377 (1938), cited in Edens, held that a "slum clearance" arrangement that would use eminent domain to demolish "unsanitary dwellings" equal to the number of new dwelling units constructed by a housing authority was constitutional as a valid exercise of the police power for a public purpose [36]
8. StuyTown, History of StuyTown [37]
9. Dorsey v. Stuyvesant Town Corp., 299 N.Y. 512 (N.Y. 1949) [38]
10. Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (1974), Rumors and the Report of Rumors (961-83) [39]

Introduction to the Fair Housing Act

1. The Fair Housing Act: Discrimination in Housing Based Upon Race or Color, U.S. Department of Justice [40]
2. Josh Gerstein, FBI releases files on Trump apartments' race discrimination probe in '70s, Politico (2017) (with optional links to source documents) [41]
3. Debra Kamin, Black Homeowners Face Discrimination in Appraisals, New York Times (2020) [42]
4. Comment of the Electronic Frontier Foundation Regarding Proposed Rule for HUD's Implementation of the Fair Housing Act's Disparate Impact Standard (2019) [43]

Class 04: Metropolitan Transit

Sarah Mae Flemming

1. Prepare questions for Katharine Allen, Historic Columbia's Director of Research, about Columbia's civil rights story
2. Columbia SC 63, Timeline of Civil Rights History [44]
3. Complaint in Flemming v. S.C. Elec. & Gas Co. (July 20, 1954)
4. Motion to Dismiss and Answer in Flemming v. S.C. Elec. & Gas Co. (September 7, 1954)
5. Flemming v. S.C. Elec. & Gas Co., 224 F.2d 752 (4th Circuit) (July 14, 1955) [45]
6. S.C. Elec. & Gas Co. v. Flemming, 351 U.S. 901 (April 23, 1956) [46]
7. New Trial May Clarify Court Action on Buses, Chicago Defender (May 26, 1956)
8. Transcript of first trial in Flemming v. S.C. Elec. & Gas Co. (June 12, 1956)
9. Flemming v. S.C. Elec. & Gas Co., 239 F.2d 277 (4th Circuit) (November 29, 1956) [47]
10. Jury Dismisses Suit by Brown, Chicago Defender (June 12, 1957)
11. The State, Obituary for Sarah Mae Flemming (1993) [on internal course site] [48]
12. The State, Series on Sarah Mae Flemming (2003) [on internal course site] [49]
13. Columbia City of Women, Sarah Mae Flemming [50]
14. Recommended: Cameron McGowan Currie, Before Rosa Parks: The Case of Sarah Mae Flemming, in W. Lewis Burke and Belina F. Gergel, Matthew J. Perry: The Man, His Times, and His Legacy (2004) [51]

Rosa Parks

1. Dara Lind, This 50-year-old article shows how the myth of Rosa Parks was made (December 1, 2016) [52]
2. Josh Moon, Bus Boycott took planning, smarts, Montgomery Advertiser (November 29, 2015) [53]
3. Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It (excerpt) (1987) (pages 1-6) [54]
   1. Note: The full book is Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started it (1987) [55]
4. Montgomery Bus Boycott [56]
5. Randall Kennedy, Martin Luther King's Constitution: A Legal History of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 98 Yale Law Journal 999 (1989) (especially Part IV) [57]
6. Debbie Elliott, 60 Years After The Boycott, Progress Stalls for Montgomery Buses, NPR (November 12, 2015) [58]
7. Pamela Oliver, Review of The Rebellious Life of Mrs Rosa Parks (February 18, 2018) [59]
   1. Note: The full book is Jeanne Theoharis, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (2013) [60]
8. Recommended: Catherine A. Barnes, Journey from Jim Crow: The Desegregation of Southern Transit (1983) [61]

Transit Planning

1. Partnership for Southern Equity, Opportunity Deferred: Race, Transportation, and the Future of Metropolitan Atlanta (2019) [62]
2. Zak Accuardi, Title VI Is Broken. Here's How Transit Leaders Can Fix It, NextCity (2018) [63]
3. Darensburg v. Metro. Transp. Comm'n, 636 F.3d 511 (9th Cir. 2011) [64]
4. Just Transportation, Living on Earth (1999), https://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=99-P13-00018&segmentID=1

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Katherine Allen at Historic Columbia (https://www.historiccolumbia.org) for her expertise, research, and materials