In 1944, eleven years before the more famous Rosa Parks, Irene Morgan boarded a Baltimore-bound bus in Virginia and sat in the "colored" section. The mother of two, she had been ill and was scheduled to see a doctor after arriving.When a white couple got on and needed seats, the bus driver ordered Morgan and her seatmate to move farther back. She refused. When a sheriff came to remove her from the bus, she resisted, kicking him in the groin and unsuccessfully struggled with the deputy sheriff.
He succeeded in dragging her off and she was charged with both resisting arrest and violating Virginia's segregation law. She pleaded guilty to the first charge and paid the $100 fine, but she refused to pay the $10 fine for the second charge.
She fought her way through the appeals process and reached the Supreme Court in 1946. In a 6-1 decision, the court accepted Thurgood Marshall's argument that Virginia's segregation was a violation of the interstate commerce clause.
Irene Morgan passed away on August 10, 2007 at the age of 90.
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