Why Is Rosa Parks So Much More Famous Than Irene Morgan

Irene Morgan Who?

Read up on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irene_Morgan

Salient excerpt from Wikipedia (Emphasis added):

“[Irene Morgan] was an African-American woman who was arrested inMiddlesex County, Virginia, in 1944 for refusing to give up her seat on an interstate bus according to a state law on segregation.

She consulted with attorneys to appeal her conviction. With the help ofWilliam 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, 328 U.S. 373 (1946), was taken to the United States Supreme Court. In 1946 in a landmark decision, the Court ruled that the Virginia law was unconstitutional, as the Commerce clause protected interstate traffic.”

Comments

Irene Morgan refused to give up her seat 9 years earlier than Rosa Parks. Her refusal became a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court not Rosa Park’s.

Ms. Parks was apparently also preceded by about two years by a Women’s Army Corps private Sarah Keys whose case also led to a landmark decision by the Interstate Commerce Commission. Ms. Keys is largely unknown as well relative to Ms. Parks, if I am not mistaken.

Perhaps Ms. Morgan Was Too Feisty To Become Famous

Wikipedia describes Ms. Morgan’s arrest as follows (Emphasis added):

“In 1944, the 27-year-old Irene Morgan was traveling to Baltimore, Maryland when she was arrested and jailed in Virginia for refusing to sit in a segregated section on an interstate Greyhound bus. ...

The bus driver stopped in Middlesex County, Virginia, and summoned the sheriff. When he tried to arrest Morgan, she tore up the arrest warrant, kicked the sheriff in the groin, and fought with the deputy who tried to pull her off the bus. She was convicted of violating state law for segregation on buses and other public transportation. Morgan pled guilty to the charge of resisting arrest and was fined $100. However, she refused the guilty plea for violating Virginia's segregation law.”

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