Separate But Equal were codified laws whereby Blacks had to sit in separate railroad cars or boat cabins away from whites in America.
Steve Luxenburg tells accounts of Frederick Douglass in his book, "Separate: The Story of Plessy versus Ferguson." He begins with the dawn of railroads in the United States (1830s) and explains how conductors would try to bypass railroad stops so as not to encounter black abolitionists to be seated with whites in railroad cars, Frederick Douglass among them. In another instance, Douglass was on a steamship on the Ohio River traveling with fellow abolitionist speaker, Charles Redmond. Kentuckians asked them to leave their dining car after they had been invited to give a talk by Henry Clay, the Statesman.