Five members of the Sistahs on the Reading Edge book club, all of Antioch, from left, Katherine Neal, Georgia Lewis, Lisa Renee Johnson, Allisa Carr and Sandra Jamerson stand together at Johnson's home in Antioch, Calif., on Monday, Aug. 24, 2015. The five women were among 11 African-American women who were were booted off the Napa Valley Wine Train two days before. Johnson holds a photograph of the group that was taken before boarding the train. A race discrimination suit was to be filed on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2015.
Photo: Jose Carlos Fajardo, Associated PressIn this June 2, 2011 file photo, a couple takes pictures at the back of the Napa Valley Wine Train as it makes its way through St. Helena, Calif. Members of a mostly black book club say they believe they were kicked off the train because of their race on Saturday, Aug. 22, 2015. A race discrimination suit was to be filed on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2015.
A group of African American women who are part of a book club were kicked off the Napa Valley Wine Train on Saturday, Aug. 22, 1015. A race discrimination suit was to be filed on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2015.
Photo: Lisa JohnsonA group of mostly black women were expelled from the train in August after being accused of being too loud.
Photo: Lisa JohnsonA group of African American women who are part of a book club were kicked off the Napa Valley Wine Train on Saturday.
Photo: Lisa JohnsonA group of African American women who are part of a book club were kicked off the Napa Valley Wine Train on Saturday.
Photo: Lisa JohnsonA group of African American women who are part of a book club were kicked off the Napa Valley Wine Train on Saturday, Aug. 22, 2015. A race discrimination suit was to be filed on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2015.
Photo: Lisa JohnsonA file photo of the Napa Valley Wine Train
Bob Bozzani and Tarla Thiel look out at the vineyards during a ride on the Napa Valley Wine Train to Castello di Amorosa in Calistoga, on September 30th 2013.
Photo: Sam Wolson, Special To The ChroniclePassengers dining on the Napa Valley Wine Train to Castello di Amorosa in Calistoga on September 30th 2013.
Photo: Sam Wolson, Special To The ChronicleThe Napa Valley Wine Train offers special Valentine's Day Weekend runs in either the intimate, glass-enclosed Vista Dome or luxury Gourmet Express car.
Photo: Napa Valley Wine TrainVineyards fans out on either side of the Napa Valley Wine Train in Northern California.
Photo: Hoberman Collection, UIG Via Getty ImagesBefore taking a lunchtime trip on the Napa Valley Wine Train, Marge and Dick Stockton, visiting from Albuquerque, New Mexico, sip a white wine at the train station on Friday January 29, 2010 in Napa, Calif.
Photo: Mike Kepka, The ChroniclePassengers riding on the Napa Valley Wine Train wave from the caboose.
Photo: Photo By Craig LeePeople checking out the scenery from inside the rail cars.
Photo: Photo By Craig Lee, SFCMike Grgich, owner and winemaker of Grgich Hills Cellar likes to meet the Wine Train when it arrives, usually at 1 p.m. Photo of the Wine Train on its way to stop at the winery.
Photo: Craig Lee, The Chronicle 2007The Napa Valley Wine Train goes over the existing Napa Wine Train bridge on Friday January 29, 2010 in Napa, Calif.
Photo: Mike Kepka, The ChronicleKevin Marcucci, a reservations agent with the Napa Valley Wine Train, welcomes guests for a lunchtime excursion on Friday January 29, 2010 in Napa, Calif. T
Photo: Mike Kepka, The ChronicleAllisa Carr tearfully recounts her Napa Valley Wine Train experience, which she said cost her her job.
Photo: Liz Hafalia, The ChronicleMembers of a mostly African American book club booted from the Napa Valley Wine Train in August after they were accused of being loud and boisterous, sued the train’s owners for racial discrimination Thursday, charging they were humiliated in front of other passengers and defamed on social media.
Two of the 11 women said the ordeal caused them to lose their jobs.
“Blacks are still being treated differently in America,” attorney Waukeen McCoy said at a news conference announcing the lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco. It seeks $11 million in damages, $1 million for each of the plaintiffs — 10 African Americans and one white woman.
“I truly now know how it feels to be a black woman,” said the white plaintiff, Linda Carlson, 55, a mail carrier in Contra Costa County. Along with the rest of the group, she was escorted off the train, past rows of other passengers, and handed over to a waiting police officer.
Having fun
The women, members of a book club called Sistahs on the Reading Edge, boarded the train in Napa on Aug. 22 for their first-ever round-trip through Wine Country. They said they were laughing and having a good time, occasionally chatting with other passengers, when a train manager, Anna Marquinn, approached and asked them to lower their voices.
The women said Marquinn returned a little later and warned them they would be removed from the train if they didn’t pipe down.
Book-club member Lisa Johnson, 47, a manager at a family service agency in Concord, said she told Marquinn they weren’t behaving any differently than other passengers and were being singled out because of their race. She said Marquinn denied any racist motives and identified herself as Latina.
At St. Helena, halfway through the three-hour trip, the women said they were ordered off the train, marched past passengers in all six cars, and turned over to a police officer from the Napa Valley Railroad. Many of the passengers “snickered” at them as they walked by, the suit said, and a number of white passengers were “inebriated and acting boisterous” but were not removed from the train.
Tira McDonald, 47, said the humiliation continued after they were kicked off the train.
“We had to stand in the hot sun and have people on the train look at us as if we were criminals,” said McDonald, a bank program manager.
The train company refunded their $62 fares and provided a van to take them back to Napa. But the women were angered when someone from the company posted an account on Facebook that accused them of “verbal and physical abuse toward other guests and staff.”
Social media comments
The company quickly deleted the posting, but it had been widely circulated and generated many hostile comments on social media, McCoy said. As a result, he asserted, two of the plaintiffs lost their jobs — Allisa Carr, 48, of Antioch, a manager at a local bank, and Debbie Reynolds, 49, also of Antioch, a hospital nurse.
Read Full ArticleMcCoy and the two women declined to discuss the dismissals or say whether their employers had mentioned the train incident. But the attorney said news of their removal had traveled quickly, and “we don’t think it was a coincidence” that they were terminated soon afterward.
Carlson said the publicity led to a heartbreaking moment when her 5-year-old granddaughter, who had heard media reports, told her, “You were being very disrespectful to those people on the train.”
Grounds for winning
To win their case, the women would have to prove that they were singled out because of their race and not their behavior. A Wine Train spokeswoman has said guests are removed from the train about once a month.
The Wine Train’s chief executive, Anthony Giaccio, apologized to the women two days after the incident, said the train staff had been “100 percent wrong,” and offered a free future trip for the women and 39 friends in a private car. McCoy said the offer wouldn’t come close to compensating the women for the harm to their reputations and for the trauma they still suffer.
The suit drew support from representatives of the local and statewide NAACP branches. The Rev. Amos Brown, chairman of the NAACP in San Francisco, said at the news conference that the incident should puncture the myth that “California is liberal and progressive.”
“It is worse than some of the Southern states,” Brown said.
In a statement Thursday, the train’s new owners, who would be on the hook for damages if the women win their suit, said the company “takes the allegations of discrimination very seriously” and has hired a former FBI agent to investigate the incident.
The Wine Train, founded nearly 26 years ago by the late Rice-a-Roni executive Vincent DeDomenico, was sold last month. The new owners are Noble House Hotels & Resorts of Seattle and Brooks Street, a real estate development and investment company with an office in Walnut Creek.
They have not announced any plans to change the train’s operations or staff.
Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko