What matters is the order of magnitude and the outcome: Elizabeth Jennings won. She did not win the full $500 she sought, but she won a real damages award against the company, with a judge’s instruction supporting her legal right to have ridden in the first place.
The New York Tribune ran a headline the next day: “A Wholesome Verdict.” The paper’s commentary noted that the decision would instruct “railroads, steamboats, and other carriers” on the rights of Black passengers. The day became known in the Black community as “Lizzie Jennings Day.”
## The Company’s Response
The Third Avenue Railroad Company did not appeal. It did not negotiate. Within a day of the verdict, the company ordered its cars open to all passengers regardless of race.
This was an immediate and significant practical consequence. The company that had employed the conductor and driver who forcibly removed Elizabeth Jennings from one of its cars now instructed all of its cars to accept Black riders. The legal action had produced a direct policy change at the specific company whose agents had committed the wrong.
The First, Second, and Fourth Avenue omnibus companies also opened their cars to all riders in the period following the verdict. Whether this was a direct response to the legal outcome or to the broader organizing pressure that surrounded it — the committee, the press campaign, the public attention to the case — is not entirely separable. The verdict was the culmination of a campaign, and the campaign had multiple pressure points. The verdict gave the campaign a public, legally recognized victory to point to.