From NKAA, Notable Kentucky African Americans Database (main entry)

In 1892 the Separate Coach bill became law in Kentucky. In 1893, Rev. William Hardin Anderson from Indiana and his wife, Sarah J. Steward Anderson, tested the law by sitting in the white section of the train and refusing to move. They were put off the train and subsequently filed a $15,000 lawsuit against the L&N Railroad. A U.S. District Court ruled the law unconstitutional and void for interstate commerce, and the Andersons won their lawsuit.

Born in Vigo County, Indiana on  May 8, 1843, W. H. Anderson was a Civil War veteran, having served in the 13th Regiment of the U.S. Colored Infantry. He was the minister of McFarland Chapel in Evansville, Indiana in 1889 when he became the first minister in the state to receive an honorary Doctor of Divinity from State University in Louisville, KY [now Simmons College of Kentucky].

Reverend Doctor W. H. Anderson died in Evansville, Indiana on June 8, 1919 and is buried in Highland Lawn Cemetery in Terre Haute, Indiana.

For more see Kentucky's Black Heritage by the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights; A. A. Marshall, "Kentucky's separate coach law and African American response, 1892-1900," Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, vol. 98, issue 3 (2000), pp. 241-259; and "Rev. W. H. Anderson, D.D." on pp. 36-42 in Our Baptist Ministers and Schools, by A. W. Pegues.