Irene Morgan

Irene Amos Morgan (April 9, 1917 – August 10, 2007), later known as Irene Morgan Kirkaldy, was an African-American woman from Baltimore, Maryland, who was arrested in Middlesex County, Virginia, in 1944 under a state law imposing racial segregation in public facilities and transportation.

She was traveling on an interstate bus that operated under federal law and regulations.

She refused to give up her seat in what the driver said was the "white section".

At the time she worked for a defense contractor on the production line for B-26 Marauders.

Morgan consulted with attorneys to appeal her conviction and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund took up her case.

She was represented by William H. Hastie, the former governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands and later a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and Thurgood Marshall, legal counsel of the NAACP.

Her case, Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia,, was appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

Irene Morgan was born in 1917 in Baltimore.

She went to local schools and was raised as a Seventh-day Adventist.

Morgan married Sherwood Morgan Sr., and had a son and daughter with him.

On July 16, 1944, Morgan boarded the Greyhound bus and had sat down next to another African-American woman who was carrying an infant.

An African-American could not sit next to or across from a Caucasian passenger, but there were no designated "black" or "white" seats on the bus.

When a white couple boarded the bus at a stop in Middlesex County, Virginia, the bus driver ordered Morgan and her seatmate to surrender their seats.

Her seatmate immediately retreated to the back of the bus with her infant, but Morgan refused to give up her spot.

When Morgan would not move, the bus driver got off the bus to find a sheriff.

The sheriff presented Morgan with an arrest warrant, but she tore up the piece of paper and threw it out of the window of the bus.

When the sheriff touched her to pull her out of her seat, she kicked him in the groin.

The sheriff got off the bus and a different sheriff was sent on.

"He touched me, that's when I kicked him in a very bad place. He hobbled off, and another one came on. I was going to bite him, but he looked dirty, so I clawed him instead. I ripped his shirt. We were both pulling at each other. He said he would use his nightstick. I said, 'We'll whip each other'".

The second sheriff got off the bus to grab the deputy.

Morgan was arrested.

She had been charged with resisting arrest and violating Virginia's Jim Crow transit law.

On October 18, 1944, Morgan attended her court case.

She agreed to pay a $100 fine for resisting arrest but refused to plead to the segregation violation.

Since Maryland did not enforce segregation for interstate travel, Virginia's Jim Crow law could possibly not apply to Morgan.

Morgan's case, with the help of the NAACP, was taken to the Virginia Supreme Court.

The supreme court ruled her in violation of the law.

Morgan then took her case to the U.S. Supreme Court and won.

Her case, Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia,, was argued by William H. Hastie, the former governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands and later a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

In 1946 in a landmark decision, the Court ruled that the Virginia law was unconstitutional, as the Commerce clause protected interstate traffic.

But neither Virginia nor other states observed the ruling and it was not enforced for decades.

He died in 1948.

During World War II, she helped the war effort by working at Glenn L. Martin, an aircraft manufacturer and defense contractor in Baltimore.

She worked on the production line for the B-26 Marauder.

She later married Stanley Kirkaldy and lived with him in New York City.

They ran a dry-cleaning business and a child-care center near where they lived in Queens.

In her 60s Kirkaldy started college studies, attending St. John's University in New York City; she received her bachelor's degree when she was 68 years old.

Five years later Morgan earned a master's degree in Urban Studies from Queens College.

Irene Morgan had been dealing with a recent miscarriage and was visiting her mother in Gloucester County, Virginia, to physically and mentally recover from the ordeal.

Hoping to go back home so she could continue working on the production line for the B-26 Marauder, Morgan boarded a Greyhound to return to Baltimore.