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→Streetcar segregation
In [[1905]], [[John Campbell Avery]], State Representative for Pensacola, introduced a bill providing for the segregation of streetcars. Pensacola's black population responded immediately to the bill (which the legislature would pass unanimously) by boycotting the [[streetcar system]]. A report was sent to streetcar parent company Stone & Webster saying, "In Pensacola 90% of the negroes have stopped riding even though the company has not issued an order or intimated anything as to what they intend to do. The negroes have appointed Committees who meet negroes visiting their city at the train and present each one with a button to be worn in the lapel of the coat. This button bears the single word WALK."<ref name="ortiz">Paul Ortiz. ''Emancipation Betrayed: The Hidden History of Black Organizing and White Violence in Florida from Reconstruction to the Bloody Election of 1920''. University of California Press, 2005.</ref> Some African-Americans rode the streetcars despite the boycott, but according to the ''[[Pensacola Journal]]'', "in each case when they are seen by persons of their own race they are subjected to taunts and cries of 'Jim Crow.'"<ref name="ortiz"/>
The Florida Supreme Court (in ''Florida v. Patterson'') struck down the Avery law a month after its passage, after which the ''Pensacola Journal'' noted, "The negroes began to ride early and it was noticeable that they almost invariably occupied the front seats."<ref name="ortiz"/> However, segregation was soon reinstituted when municipalities the [[City of Pensacola]] passed ordinances using modified Avery language; in Pensacola, it was an ordinance (sponsored by the [[Pensacola Chamber of Commerce|Chamber of Commerce]]) using modified Avery language. The ordinance was vetoed by [[Pensacola Mayor|Mayor]] [[Charles H. Bliss]], out of concerns that it would also be found unconstitutional, but was passed by the council regardless. It went into effect on [[October 15]], 1905. [[L. B. Crooms]] was jailed for violating the streetcar laws, and in the [[1906]] cases ''Crooms v. Schad'' and ''Patterson v. Taylor'' these new segregation laws were upheld as constitutional.<ref>Shira Levine. [http://www.umich.edu/~historyj/pages_folder/articles/To_Maintain_Our_Self-Respect.pdf "'To Maintain Our Self-Respect': The Jacksonville Challenge to Segregated Street Cars and the Meaning of Equality, 1900-1906."]</ref>
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