AN AFRICAN AMERICAN woman riding on a bus is told to relinquish her seat for a white passenger. She says no. The driver warns her that if she doesn’t move, she’ll be arrested. The woman stays put, and the driver summons local police, who throw her in jail. Her case sparks a lawsuit that eventually helps bring an end to de jure discrimination on buses across the country and galvanizes early civil rights advocates. To the general public, however, she remains virtually unknown. Her name was Irene Morgan, and on July 16, 1944, she boarded a Maryland-bound Greyhound Bus in Gloucester, Virginia.
