The wine train apologized and offered them another ride.
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Lisa Renee Johnson, a book clum member and an author who documented the afternoon on her Facebook page, told The Napa Valley Register that the maître d’ delivered a number of warnings to the group, threatening to eject them from the train if they did not bring their noise level down.
A group of Black women who were booted from a Napa Valley wine train are seeking retaliation-in the form of an million racial discrimination lawsuit.
The women said many of them were part of a book club that meets regularly and had gathered on the train to discuss a romance novel. They were escorted through several cars as other passengers stared and then off the train and into a dirt lot where police were waiting, according to the suit. When the train arrived in St. Helena, the women were denied the gourmet lunch served to other passengers and “humiliatingly marched through six train cars” to exit the through the front of the train while passing other drunk and boisterous white passengers, according to the suit. At least one witness, on Yelp, Danielle S. of Seattle, said at the time, “I’d like to think it wasn’t a racially motivated act, but given the fact that other, non-black guests were behaving in the same way and not removed, I can only conclude that it was discrimination”.
Two of the women – a nurse and a bank/credit card company employee – say they lost their jobs because of news reports about the incident and comments made about them on social media.
Kicking the plaintiffs off the train gave white privilege to the passenger who verbally complained in the bar auto.
Lisa Johnson, left, one of the plaintiffs filing a lawsuit over their ejection from a Napa Valley Wine Train, wipes her eyes during a news conference, Thursday, October 1, 2015, in San Francisco.
A spokesman for the company, Sam Singer, has said individuals or groups are asked to get off the wine train once a month on average for various reasons.
“No one should ever have to experience what we experienced”, Carlson said.
“We want people to realize that this is our life and there have been very serious repercussions”, Johnson said.
Johnson denied that any members of her group were abusive.
Their removal led to discussion online under the hashtag, #laughingwhileblack.
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Owners of the train say they have hired a retired Federal Bureau of Investigation agent to investigate the women’s claims. However the women have since lodged an $11m racial discrimination lawsuit against the Napa Wine Train in an effort to raise awareness that racism still exists in America.
