Elizabeth Jennings Graham: America's First Freedom Rider
Jerry Mikorenda will give a lecture on Elizabeth Jennings Graham, an African American woman who changed the course of New York City history in 1854 – on Thursday, February 19, at 7:00 pm in the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum’s Reichert Planetarium. The event is in observance of Black History Month.
When the conductor of a public horsecar ordered Elizabeth Jennings to wait for the next car because it had “her people” in it, she refused. She was then assaulted by the conductor, aided by a New York City police officer, and thrown off the wagon a second time.
Drawing from his biography, America's First Freedom Rider: Elizabeth Jennings, Chester A. Arthur, and the Early Fight for Civil Rights (Lyons Press, 2020), Mikorenda will show the impact Elizabeth Jennings had on desegregating public transit. His book will be available for purchase.
On February 22, 1855, Elizabeth Jennings v. Third Avenue Railroad went before the New York State Supreme Court in Brooklyn where she won her case before an all-white, male jury. Seeking $500 in damages, the jury stunned the courtroom with a $250 verdict in her favor. Future U.S. President Chester A. Arthur was Jennings’ attorney, and their lives after that day would be forever intertwined.
Mikorenda’s short stories have been published in the San Francisco Chronicle, BULL, Cowboy Jamboree, and Gravel Magazine, as well as in other journals. In 2022, his novel, The Whaler’s Daughter (Regal House Publishing), was nominated by the Children’s Book Council for two Kids’ Book Choice Awards. Mikorenda is a graduate of the Master’s Program at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School.
His work also has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Herald, and Newsday. His history profiles are anthologized in the 2010 Encyclopedia of New York City, What the Presidents Read, and on the Gotham Center’s History Blog. Mikorenda is a member of the Author’s Guild and Northport Arts Coalition.
