Changes

In [[1905]], [[John Campbell Avery, Jr.]], State Representative for Pensacola, introduced a bill providing for the segregation of streetcars. The summary of the bill was as follows: <blockquote>An act to require street car companies and others in this state, to furnish separate cars or divisions for white and colored passengers; to require said companies and others to keep white and colored passengers in their respective cars or divisions; to give conductors and employees of said companies police powers; and to provide penalties [$25 fine and/or 30 days' imprisonment] for the violation of this act.<ref>"Mr. Avery's Race Separation Bill." ''Pensacola Journal'', April 25, 1905.</ref></blockquote>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"/>