Presidential Citizens Medal - Presidential Citizens Medal Recipient Irene Morgan

Eleven years before Rosa Parks took her now-famous bus ride in Montgomery, Alabama, Irene Morgan, a young Seventh-day Adventist woman, had the courage to take a stand and set right an injustice. In July, 1944, the 27-year-old mother of two refused to accept the standard for the day and give up her bus seat for a white couple. In taking her firm position and refusing to back down she was arrested and dragged off the bus. She did not accept that it couldn't be done. Irene Morgan's case eventually ended up with the Supreme Court ruling that segregation on interstate buses was illegal.

1945 Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia - Hatie and Marshall argued successfully that Virginia could not require racial segregation on interstate buses - Irene Morgan had been travelling from Virginia to Baltimore and refused to give up her seat to whites or move to the back of the bus (10 years before Rosa Parks in Montgomery) - followed by the interracial "Journey of Reconciliation" to publicize the Morgan decision.

In the spring of 1946, Irene Morgan, a black woman, boarded a bus in Virginia to go to Baltimore, Maryland. She was ordered to sit in the back of the bus, as Virginia state law required. She objected, saying that since the bus was an interstate bus, the Virginia law did not apply. The bus driver had acted according to a 1930 state law that required the segregation of seating rows on buses. Morgan was arrested and fined ten dollars. Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP took on the case. They argued that since an 1877 Supreme Court decision ruled that it was illegal for a state to forbid segregation, then it was likewise illegal for a state to require it. The United States Supreme Court agreed:

"As no state law can reach beyond its own border nor bar transportation of passengers across its boundaries, diverse seating requirements for the races in interstate journeys result. As there is no federal act dealing with the separation of races in interstate transportation, we must decide the validity of this Virginia statute on the challenge that it interferes with commerce, as a matter of balance between the exercise of the local police power and the need for national uniformity in the regulations for interstate travel. It seems clear to us that seating arrangements for the different races in interstate motor travel require a single, uniform rule to promote and protect national travel. Consequently, we hold the Virginia statute in controversy invalid."

The court did not rule that segregated transportation within the state was unconstitutional. The ruling, while another defeat for segregation in law, did not have an immediate impact. Buses still segregated its passengers until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s put an end to the practice once and for all.

--Richard Wormser

Today, Irene Morgan's story is cited as an outstanding example of courage and integrity.