Local • Perspective

He drove a truck in World War II, but he wasn’t allowed to drive a streetcar in D.C.

By John Kelly
Columnist
Feb. 20, 2021 at 6:19 p.m. EST

Jane Stokes never went to the amusement park at Glen Echo, even after it finally opened its doors to African Americans such as herself in 1961. ... “It was just the notion of us not being able to do that,” she told Answer Man. ... “It just left something, an emptiness. And I just never went out there.”

Her husband, Howard Stokes, went to Glen Echo thousands of times. But he never went inside the park, either. Stokes was a streetcar operator for the Capital Transit Co., a firm that had its own racist history: The company refused to hire Black bus drivers or streetcar operators until 1955.

[Streetcar from Georgetown to Glen Echo was area’s most memorable ride]

Howard Stokes became an operator a year later and was assigned to the No. 20 trolley line, running between Union Station and Cabin John, Md. That meant he took White patrons to a park he was barred from entering.

He couldn’t even go inside to use the bathroom, as the White drivers could. ... “You had to hold it till you got back to Union Station,” Stokes told Answer Man. ... If you are a Black Washingtonian, your memories of Glen Echo and its streetcar are probably vastly different from the memories of White Washingtonians.

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For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/john-kelly.

John Kelly
John Kelly writes John Kelly's Washington, a daily look at Washington's less-famous side. Born in Washington, John started at The Post in 1989 as deputy editor in the Weekend section. Follow https://twitter.com/JohnKelly