by Tom Chillemi –
In 1944 Irene Morgan bucked a system that segregated whites and blacks when she refused to move from her bus seat to give it to a white couple.
Arrested in Saluda, she was tried in Middlesex County court but appealed and the guilty verdict was eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1946, striking down segregation on interstate transportation modes in the U.S.
Unlike Rosa Parks, who in 1955 refused to give up her bus seat to a white in Montgomery, Alabama, Morgan’s case failed to gain nationwide attention.
Parks’ arrest sparked a 382-day bus boycott that helped ignite a civil rights movement that culminated in the Civil Rights Act of the late-1950s and mid-1960s. The bus boycott was organized by a little-known 27-year-old Baptist clergyman named Martin Luther King Jr.
The cases of Morgan and Parks were heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, and in both cases, segregated seating laws were ruled unconstitutional.
Morgan’s case dealt with passengers traveling between states; while Parks’ case successfully challenged segregation on public transportation within state lines.
State values
Before winning in the U.S. Supreme Court, Morgan’s guilty verdict was upheld by the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. That opinion was penned by state Justice Herbert B. Gregory explaining state laws on segregation at that time.
The following are excerpts from Gregory’s 22-page writing on the case dated June 6, 1945. The documents were part of Morgan’s case and were archived in the Middlesex Courthouse in 1992.
Morgan’s challenge was the first time the validity of any of the segregation acts, as applied to interstate passengers, had been before the court, stated Judge Gregory’s legal ruling.
Also, no attempt had been made to appeal segregation laws, he noted.
Morgan’s attorneys cited the application of the segregation law to interstate commerce was in violation of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Middlesex County Court records indicate. That amendment, among other things, forbids laws that deprive persons from “life, liberty or property without due process of law” and it requires equal protection under law.
Morgan’s lawyer, Spotswood Robinson III, who later became a federal judge, argued that segregation laws were limited to only those passengers traveling within state lines.
Police Power
Virginia law required bus drivers to assign separate sections for the races and gave them the power to eject passengers.
Bus drivers were given “special police powers” that were also given to conductors and motormen on electric railways such as trolleys. Carriers who failed to comply with segregation laws could be fined.
“The law provided that drivers shall make no difference or distinction in the quality of convenience accommodations,” wrote Judge Gregory.
If it became necessary, bus drivers were required to make changes in seating designations so as to increase the amount of space set apart for either race.
In these racially-segregated times, bus drivers were considered “special policemen” and had the powers of “conservator of the peace,” wrote Judge Gregory. Virginia’s laws were enacted under the police powers granted by the 10th Amendment of the Constitution.
It had been the policy of the state to segregate races at least since 1900 on steamboats, railroads, etc., and Judge Gregory pointed this out in his opinion.
Citing a specific case involving a railway, Judge Gregory said that if a law, which requires the segregation of races directly, or unreasonably interferes with commerce, it is not constitutional.
A Kentucky case had found that segregation was not an unreasonable demand on interstate commerce.
Gregory noted three cases in which the “separate but equal” accommodations were valid under state law.
But, he noted the U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled upon the validity of the cases. “The ultimate settlement of the questions rest with the court,” he said. “[Until that time] the court will adhere to the belief that the [segregation] law is not only beyond criticism . . . but also a reasonable and wise exercise of police powers of the state.”
Legislation
Attempts by the U.S. House of Representatives to introduce legislation abolishing segregation on public carriers died in committees seven times from 1938 to 1946, wrote Judge Gregory. This indicated that Congress wanted the segregation matter left to the states. “. . . It would seem logical that a segregation statute, which is not shown to affect interstate commerce in any way, except perhaps to improve it, would be valid,” he wrote.
Had Morgan and her seat mate complied with the law “interstate commerce would have been aided,” he wrote.
Delicate
Following the state court’s affirmation of the guilty verdict, Morgan’s lawyers filed petitions to have the case re-heard by the same court within 30 days.
In the interim, a letter from the Assistant State Attorney General M. Ray Doubles was sent to Middlesex County Commonwealth’s Attorney Lewis Jones Jr. asking that he postpone enforcement of a judgment against Morgan until the State Supreme Court heard the petition. “. . . It would be extremely embarrassing to inject any additional complications into the case which is delicate enough as it stands,” the letter stated.
A year later the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the state court’s ruling with a precedent-setting decision that struck down segregation on interstate modes of transportation.
