Mary Bowers & Right to Ride Walking Tour Being Researched for May 2023 Launch

From Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit
 To Local Press and Media
For Release April 6, 2023 

Charleston, SC- Today, Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit, Inc. begins the final phase of our effort to create a Mary Bowers Right to Ride Walking Tour of Charleston remembering her successful struggle to integrate the City’s horse drawn streetcars two years after the Civil War. The tour will be first offered to the public on Thursday, May 4, 2023. 

Image, right, Demonstrators March to the Sea in July 2015 to demand the return of public transit bus service to the beach.

William Hamilton will be working in the SC History Room of the Charleston County Library from 10 am to 12:30 pm on Friday, April 7 (Anniversary of the Ironclad attack on Ft. Sumpter in 1863) to fill in answers to some of the questions which need to be answered to move the tour plan towards completion. Hamilton invites persons interested in the work to join him there. 

For more information see www.bfltransit.com online. This tour will focus on Mary Bowers, Rosa Parks of the Holy City, and her successful effort to force integration of Charleston’s horse drawn streetcars in Spring of 1867, shortly after the Civil War at the beginning of reconstruction here. 

This little known, but dramatic history, was uncovered by Dr. Nick Butler of the Charleston County Library. After an April 1857 Republican Party Rally (then almost exclusively consisting or Northerners and freed slaves in SC) to celebrate the passage of the Federal Civil Rights and Reconstruction acts on Marion Square, Mary decided to reality test all those big promises about equality by trying to ride Charleston’s brand new horse drawn streetcars on Meeting St. She was denied the right to ride, made a stand and finally relented to let the car go on, after she blocked up all the cars on the line. Mary told the driver, “If I get off this car, there will be trouble.” 

 Trouble there was, up to and including a near riot and massacre at the four corners of Law where the ex-Confederates of the City Guard (Police Force) faced off against the US Army of occupation, almost exclusively composed of African American freed slaves. Someone was able to talk that down. Everyone went home alive. We don’t know who the person who managed that de-escalation was. 

Image, left- Mary Smith portrays Syphide our mascot, the spirit of motion at the Atlanta Transit Expo. Mary was a frequent leader of protests in Charleston before her death in Sept. 2029

During weeks of unrest, some things in Charleston were broken. Some things may have been set on fire. Finally General Scott responded to a complaint filed by Bowers by sending a letter to the street railroad company suggesting it would be best to let everyone ride. They reluctantly agreed and on May 4, the cars were thrown open to all. Everyone in the City of Charleston had the right to ride. The date has been quietly celebrated in Charleston for the past 8 years. 

 The right to ride endured for about 30 years until the passage of Jim Crow laws under rigid segregationist upstate Governor Ben Tillman resegregated public transportation in Charleston for about 65 years. We’re unable to document significant activism regarding the desegregation of SCE&Gs buses here during the Civil Rights movement currently. It may have happened quietly. Research continues. 

How You Can Help

If you work as a tour guide or historian, we welcome your help in refining the materials which will illuminate this remarkable, forgotten chapter in Charleston’s history and putting that awareness on the ground with a tour integrated with the city’s DASH bus system. The effort needs tour guides willing to conduct the tour as part of their regular business, locals and visitors ready to take it and a modest amount of funding to cover the costs of printing and publicity. 

To become involved contact William Hamilton at 843-870-5299 or wjhamilton29464@gmail.com. Contributions to support the effort can be made through act blue. 

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