Conjure the Railroad

Abstract

This chapter discusses how African Americans tried to harness the magic of the southern railroad and how white southerners tried to circumscribe this power. It opens with a discussion of the myth of Black Ulysses and black folk songs to show how black men would “conjure the railroad” and invoke its magic as they toiled to build lines and moves into a discussion of the racialized convict labor system that companies used to build much of the railroad mileage in the South. In other aspects of railroad labor, white officials limited advancement of black workers and kept them in subservient roles like the Pullman Porter. Through a discussion of travel narratives, the chapter shows how white travellers used the railroad to apply new pernicious stereotypes to African Americans. While black activists like Ida B. Wells tried to fight for equal access to rail travel, white authorities moved to segregate railroads and the supreme court case that ultimately enshrined Jim Crow segregation – Plessy v Ferguson – took place after a challenge to a railroad’s segregation policies.