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→Streetcar segregation
<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"/>
The law went into effect on [[July 1]], [[1905]], the full text of which read:
<blockquote>
<p>A bill to be entitled 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 for the violation of this Act.</p>
<p>Be it enacted by the legislature of the State of Florida:</p>
<p>Section 1. That all street car companies, persons, associations of persons, firms or corporations operating street car lines in this State shall furnish separate accommodations for white and colored passengers.</p>
<p>Sec. 2. That every street car company or person operating a street car line in this state shall make provision, rules and regulations for the separation of white passengers from negro passengers by separate cars, or fixed divisios, or movable screens, or other method of division in the cars of such lines. A failure or refusal by such company or person to make such provision, rules and regulations shall be a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof it or he shall be punished by a fine not to exceed fifty ($50.00) dollars for each offense. Each day of such failure or refusal after [[July 1]], [[1905]], shall constitute a separate offense.</p>
<p>Sec. 3. That when any street car is divided into divisions, the divisions set apart or provided for white and colored passengers, respectively, may be in space proportioned according to usual and ordinary volume of travel by white and colored passengers on the line on which the car is used.</p>
<p>Sec. 4. That conductors or other employes in charge of such cars shall assign passengers to their respective car or division, provided by said companies under the provision of this act, and such persons in charge of such cars are hereby invested with police powers to carry the provisions of this act into effect.</p>
<p>Sec. 5. That any passenger willfully occupying any car or division of car other than that to which he has been assigned, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and be punished by a fine not to exceed $25.00, or by imprisonment not to exceed thirty days. Conductors and all other employes in charge of such cars or divisions of cars are hereby clothed with the power to eject from the car or cars any passenger who refuses to occupy such car or division to which he may be assigned.</p>
<p>Sec. 6. If any such employe having charge of any such car shall permit white and colored passengers to occupy the same car or division, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and punishable by a fine of not exceeding fifty dollars or imprisonment for not exceeding thirty days or both in the discretion of the court.</p>
<p>Sec. 7. That the provisions of this act shall not apply to colored curses having the care of white children or sick persons.</p>
<p>Sec. 8. That nothing in this act shall be construed to prevent the running of extra, or special cars for the exclusive accommodation of either white or colored passengers, if the regular cars are operated as usual, as required by this act.</p>
<p>Sec. 9. That all laws or parts of laws in conflict with this act are hereby repealed.</p>
<p>Sec. 10. That this act shall take effect on the 1st day of July, 1905.</p><ref name="effective">"'Jim Crow' Law Is Now Effective." ''Pensacola Journal'', July 1, 1905.</ref>
</blockquote>
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"/>
