James Pennington

James W. C. Pennington 1809–1870

Born Queen Anne’s County, Maryland

In 1855, a century before Rosa Parks challenged racial segregation on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, James W. C. Pennington was ejected from a New York City streetcar for attempting to ride in a “whites only” car. The internationally known clergyman, abolitionist, and civil rights activist was unsuccessful in his lawsuit against the streetcar company. But within several years, the New York Legal Rights Association, which Pennington helped to found, made significant progress in securing better treatment for African Americans within the city’s municipal transit system.

This portrait was created to accompany a brief biography of Pennington published in A Tribute for the Negro (1848).