Hattip to my friend Jay Anderson for advising me of this tidbit of history.  Today is the 178th birthday of Mary Custis Lee, the eldest daughter of Robert E. Lee.  She could be a pill.  Described by her siblings as “bossy” and “stern”, she asked only one thing out of life:  her own way.  She did not suffer those she considered fools gladly, and she was never shy about reminding people that she was the eldest daughter of Robert E. Lee.

On June 13, 1902 she and her black maid had sat down on an Alexandria street car, laden with packages.  Miss Lee was now in her 67th year, so no doubt she was tired.  She and her maid sat in the back of the street car.  A “Jim Crow” ordinance had recently been passed in Alexandria , and among other odious provisions it mandated racial segregation on street cars, with…