Her arrest rattled the South

Posted 10/16/19

Sundown was approaching on Friday the 13th of June 1902. An elderly woman was visiting a friend in Alexandria, Va. She stepped on a small streetcar and took a seat. A short time later she was led off …

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Her arrest rattled the South

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Sundown was approaching on Friday the 13th of June 1902. An elderly woman was visiting a friend in Alexandria, Va. She stepped on a small streetcar and took a seat. A short time later she was led off to jail by two policemen. Word of her arrest was flashed across the country. It was newsworthy because this was no common little old lady. And her crime involved an issue that still haunts us today.
The New York Times’ headline the next morning summed it up: “Daughter of Gen. Robert E. Lee Arrested; Insisted on Remaining in Colored Section of Street Car.” Forgotten today, the incident was big news at the time. Here’s what happened.
The blood of the First Families of Virginia flowed in Mary Custis Lee’s veins. The second child and first daughter of Robert E. Lee, she was named for her mother Mary (who, as a Custis, was Martha Washington’s great-granddaughter). She was also the granddaughter of Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, a Revolutionary War hero and governor. 
And she acted the part, too. Even as a child Mary was described by friends as “bossy” with a to the manner born attitude. She absolutely adored her father (as did her sisters; none of Lee’s daughters ever married). She helped persuade him to accept the presidency of Washington College in Lexington, Va., after Appomattox, giving America a peace and reconciliation it might not have otherwise had.
Following her mother’s death in 1873, Mary actively promoted her father’s legacy. By then, Robert E. Lee personified all that was good and honorable in the Lost Cause. She made sure the country viewed her beloved daddy the same way she did.
Which made what happened that evening in 1902 so remarkable.
Mary was 66 when she climbed aboard that tiny streetcar and sat down. But there was a problem. Alexandria and nearby Fairfax had recently adopted ordinances declaring separate “white” and “colored” sections for passengers. Mary was sitting in a spot reserved for African-American passengers.  
The conductor hurried over, explained the situation, and told her she would have to move to the “whites” section. Mary said she didn’t know about the new law. She protested and was, in the conductor’s words, “loathe to move herself or her baggage.”
At the next stop a black man boarded. Once again, the conductor told Mary she was sitting in a seat the man was legally entitled to occupy and threatened her with arrest. Once again, she refused to budge.
When Mary finally got off a few stops later, two police officers were waiting. They escorted her to jail. This was big news. Little old Southern ladies simply did not get arrested; and certainly not the daughter of the greatest Southerner of them all. A witness said she “concealed her embarrassment with great effort.”
A situation developed. Mary was widely known in Alexandria; a crowd quickly formed outside the jail filled, The (Washington) Evening Star reported, with “gray-haired men, many of whom had doubtless served under her father.” They revered Robert E. Lee’s memory and weren’t going to let his daughter be locked up. The authorities eventually decided discretion was the better part of valor. Mary was sent home with the promise she’d appear in court the next morning, where the matter was quietly dismissed.
So, what was it all about? People then and now aren’t sure. One biographer claims Mary was upset because the new law made it difficult for her to travel with her “colored” maid. It’s also quite possible she meant what she said about being unaware of that ordinance. Since Alexandria and Fairfax where the only cities in Virginia in 1902 that required segregated seating (a statewide law took effect four years later), and it was largely unknown to many Virginians.
Or could there have been another reason? A man in Alberta, Canada, sent a letter saying, “Please accept my thanks for your human action in breaking the color line.”
Was Mary Custis Lee, in her own way, protesting the era’s increasing racial segregation?
We’ll never know. Because despite spending the bulk of her life publicly honoring her father, she was intensely private herself. Mary took her true reason to the grave with her when she died at age 83 in 1918, fond of telling anyone who’d listen she was “the last surviving child of General Robert E. Lee.”      
Have comments, questions or suggestions you’d like to share with Mark? Message him at jmp.press@gmail.com .

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