Irene Morgan
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Irene Morgan (April 9, 1917 – August 10, 2007), later known as Irene Morgan Kirkaldy, was an important predecessor to Rosa Parks in the successful fight to overturn segregation laws in the United States. Like the more famous Parks, but eleven years earlier, in 1944, the 27-year-old Baltimore-born African-American was arrested and jailed in Virginia for refusing to give up her seat on an interstate Greyhound bus to a white person. In a 1946 landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-1 that Virginia's state law enforcing segregation on interstate buses was illegal.
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[edit] A fateful bus ride
In July 1944, Morgan was a 27-year-old mother of two, living in Gloucester County, Virginia. She had been ill and one Sunday morning she boarded a Greyhound Lines intercity bus bound for Baltimore, Maryland, where she was to see a doctor. She sat down four rows from the back of the bus, in the section for "colored" people. When a white couple boarded and needed seats, the driver told Morgan and her seatmate to move farther back. Irene Morgan refused.
[edit] Arrest, jail and conviction
The bus driver stopped in Middlesex County, Virginia, and summoned the sheriff, who tried to arrest Morgan. She tore up the arrest warrant, kicked the sheriff in the groin and fought with the deputy who tried to drag her off the bus. He succeeded, however, and Morgan was jailed for resisting arrest and violating Virginia's segregation law.
When she went to court, Morgan pleaded guilty to the first charge (resisting arrest) and paid a $100 fine. She pleaded not guilty to the second charge, but was found guilty and fined $10. She refused to pay that fine.[1]
[edit] Landmark U.S. Supreme Court case
Irene Morgan appealed her case on the conviction for violating the segregation laws. After exhausting appeals in state courts, she and her lawyers appealed her conviction on constitutional grounds all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1946, the justices agreed to hear the case.
Her case, Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia, , was argued by Thurgood Marshall, the chief counsel of the NAACP and later himself an Associate Supreme Court Justice. William H. Hastie was co-counsel.[1] The action resulted in a landmark ruling in 1946, which struck down state laws requiring segregation in situations involved interstate transportation. Marshall used an innovative strategy to argue the case. Instead of relying upon the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment, Marshall argued successfully that segregation on interstate travel violated the Interstate Commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution.
"If something happens to you which is wrong, the best thing to do is have it corrected in the best way you can," said Morgan. "The best thing for me to do was to go to the Supreme Court."
In 1960, in Boynton v. Virginia, the Supreme Court further extended the Morgan ruling to bus terminals used in interstate bus service. Nonetheless, many African Americans were ejected or arrested when they tried to integrate such facilities as Southern states refused to obey Morgan v. Virginia. [2]
[edit] Journey of Reconciliation
Morgan's case inspired the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation, during which 16 activists from the Chicago-based Congress of Racial Equality rode on interstate buses through the Upper South to test the enforcement of the Supreme Court's ruling. The activists divided themselves between Greyhound and Trailways bus lines and usually rode with an interracial pair in the white-area of the bus, with the other activists disguised as disinterested observers in the racial sections that applied to them. The group traveled uneventfully through Virginia, but once they reached North Carolina they encountered violence and arrests. By the end of the Journey, the protesters had conducted over 24 "tests" and endured 12 arrests and dangerous mob violence. Famous civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, in a flagrant violation of the Irene Morgan decision, was sentenced to 22 days on a chain gang in North Carolina for his participation in the Journey. The 1947 Journey of Reconciliation, far ahead of its time in its use of tactics of nonviolent direct action, inspired the highly publicized Freedom Rides of 1961, also organized by CORE.
[edit] Legacy
"When something's wrong, it's wrong. It needs to be corrected," said Morgan years later. Morgan's story has been mostly overlooked by history books, but she had been collecting honors in the past few years since 1995, when she appeared in a public television documentary about her case and the Journey of Reconciliation.
In 2000, Irene Morgan, by then in her 80s, was honored by Gloucester County, Virginia during its 350th anniversary celebration. And in 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Citizens Medal.
She died on August 10, 2007 in Gloucester County at her daughter's home. She was ninety years old.[1]
She was a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.[3]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c "Milestones," August 27, 2007 edition of TIME Magazine at p. 23.
- ^ Equal Access to Public Accommodations - The Civil Rights Movement in Virginia - Virginia Historical Society
- ^ Presidential Citizens Medal Recipient Irene Morgan retrieved on 2007-12-01
