Honouring Black coachmen from Jim Crow era

Colonial Williamsburg coachman Benjamin Spraggins sits atop a carriage holding former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and then-Gen Dwight D. Eisenhower in Williamsburg, Virginia, the United States, on March 8, 1946. Photo: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation via AP

The Black men who drove horse-drawn carriages through the streets of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, the United States, were both everywhere and invisible during the Jim Crow era.

Their wooden coaches helped conjure up the late 18th Century for visitors including Queen Elizabeth, Sir Winston Churchill and then-Gen Dwight Eisenhower. And yet the men were forced to use separate bathrooms and water fountains, among the many other sanctioned indignities of segregation.