Irene Morgan, an African American woman, boarded a Greyhound bus here on 16 July 1944 while returning home to Baltimore, MD, after visiting her mother. About 25 miles north, the bus driver ordered her to give up her seat so that white passengers could sit. She refused, was arrested, and was jailed in Saluda, VA. Her case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in Morgan v. Virginia (1946) that laws requiring segregation of passengers in interstate transportation were unconstitutional. Morgan took her stand 11 years before Rosa Parks in Montgomery, AL.

Photo: Devry Becker Jones (CC0)

Gloucester Point, Virginia · USA