George A. Newman Sr.

Editors’ note: According to Ruth Toliver’s Keeping Up with Yesterday (2009), Newman administered the “colored” school in Harrisonburg intermittently for twenty-six years, filling in whenever the school could not find a credentialed individual to serve in the position of principal. During one gap in service, from 1890 to 1891, he traveled as a Deputy Marshal on the railroad. According to Toliver, Newman typically traveled first class in his position as Deputy Marshal, but when he boarded the train in Tennessee he was forced to travel in the “colored” car. He wrote this poem—advocating a train boycott—in response to that experience.

Dear friends, I’m sorry to relate
It’s known both near and far,
In Tennessee, that grand old State
They used the Jim Crow Car;
And every colored citizen,
No matter what his fame,
Must ride inside that special den;
I tell you, it’s a shame.

Chorus:

The Jim Crow Car of Tennessee
Is not the car for me,
And if I only had a chance
I’d make the Legislature dance.

The Jim Crow Car has seats for all
Who bear the fateful mark,
And, though you tower e’er so tall,
Get in: your skin is dark!
Your first-class fare is no defence,
Your ticket’s but a lie;
A sham, an insult, a pretence;
This fact you’ll not deny.

Chorus

We know not where to take our case
To get ourselves relieved.
As Uncle Sam’s no[t] in the race
When Afric’s Sons are grieved;
So we must rise in self defence.
Though humble we may be.
And show, by using common sense,
That we will still be free.

Chorus

No more excursions for our race
To this place and to that,
Let us presume it a disgrace,
And sit down on them flat.
Then when they see we have the grit
To boycott, near and far,
They’ll change the law, and let us sit
In any proper car.

Final Chorus:

The Jim Crow Car of Tennessee
Don’t give us a fair show,
And, sure as Negroes were made free,
The hateful Jim Crow Car must go.^[1]