Ethel Thompson and her family reached Hartford after midnight. She entered the Hotel Essex on Main Street and went to the front desk to check in. The night clerk got the key and was taking her to a room when she informed him that she, her husband and their small grandchild were "colored."
The clerk stopped. The light-skinned, blue-eyed woman had taken him by surprise. And now, there was no room big enough for them at the Hotel Essex, he told Mrs. Thompson.
It was July 4, 1945. Ethel Thompson had one son in the Army, serving in the Philippines. Her step-son was serving in Germany. But in Hartford, there was no room for the Thompson family. They wandered around until morning until they could call on family members who lived in the city. Then Ethel Thompson went to the Police Station and swore out a complaint.
The Hartford arrest was the first prosecution in the state for violating a 1941 Connecticut law banning discrimination by hotels or other public conveniences against any person because of their race or color.
The defense produced witnesses who backed up the clerk and testified that other Negroes had stayed at the hotel in the past. But the police detective told another story. He took a statement from the clerk who said he had thought Ethel Thompson was white. The detective asked him why he had refused her the room. "Just one of those things," the clerk replied.
The judge found the hotel clerk not guilty. The Honorable Abraham A. Ribicoff told the courtroom that he knew there was discrimination in Hartford, but the state had not proven its case. The burning issue of race bias in Hartford, and the related issue of fair housing for people of color, had just begun.
