Ellen Garrison, Antislavery Activist and Educator

By Dan Gore

In 1866, Ellen Garrison tested the nation’s first Civil Rights Act in court. Almost a century before Rosa Parks took her seat on an Alabama bus, Ellen sat in a segregated waiting room in a Baltimore train station an was “forcibly ejected.” Ellen felt it was her duty to test the new law. “I feel as though I ought to strive to maintain my rights… it will be a stand for others….”