THE SUPREME COURT: The Principal’s Principle

One summer day in 1948 William C. Chance, an aging Negro high-school principal, got aboard an Atlantic Coast Line railway coach in Philadelphia, bound for his home in Parmele, N.C. When the train crossed into Virginia, the conductor asked Principal Chance to move into a Jim Crow car for the rest of his ride. Chance refused, was taken off the train at Emporia, Va. and arrested for disorderly conduct. He sued for $25,000 damages.

Last week the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with his principle if not with his estimate of the damages. By refusing to review an appeals court verdict, the Supreme Court 1) awarded Chance $55 damages, and 2) extended to railway coaches in interstate traffic the non-segregation ruling laid down for dining cars in 1950.

The decision left some loopholes still unplugged. The Atlantic Coast Line suggested that it may apply only to a Negro who gets on a train in the North, but not to one who gets aboard in a state requiring segregation. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People promptly promised a broader suit directed not only against Jim Crow cars in interstate transportation, but also against segregation in any public carrier, whether operating across state lines or not.