himself into any railroad car or other public vehicle set apart for the exclusive accommodation of persons of color, under the same penalties." The law[4] of Mississippi was as follows: "That it shall be unlawful for any officer, station agent, conductor, or employee on any railroad in this State, to allow any freedman, Negro, or mulatto, to ride in any first-class passenger cars, set apart, or used by, and for white persons; and any person offending against the provisions of this section shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof, before the circuit court of the county in which said offence was committed, shall be fined not less than fifty dollars, nor more than five hundred dollars; and shall be imprisoned in the county jail until such fine and costs of prosecution are paid: Provided, that this section of this act shall not apply in the case of Negroes or mulattoes, traveling with their mistresses, in the capacity of nurses." Texas[5] simply provided that every railroad company should be required to attach to each passenger train run by it one car for the special accommodation of freedmen.
Other Southern States, perhaps, would have undertaken similar legislation, had the legislatures been left unfettered; but under the Reconstruction régime, a number of the States even passed laws prohibiting discriminatio against Negroes in public conveyances. In 1870, the Georgia legislature[6] enacted a statute requiring the railroads in the State to furnish equal accommodations to all, without regard to race, color, or previous condition, when a greater amount of fare was exacted than had been exacted before January 1, 1861, which had been at that
