RICHMOND, Va. -- Most people know the story of Rosa Parks - but are you familiar with the name Irene Morgan?
In July 1944, 27-year-old Morgan left her mother's home in Gloucester, Virginia bound for Baltimore. In Middlesex County, white people boarded a bus she was traveling on and she was told to move, but didn't.
She was arrested and convicted of violating a 1930 Virginia Law that required the segregation of passengers on interstate buses. She appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court and lost, but lawyers with the NAACP, including Thurgood Marshall, took her case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
There they argued that segregation violated the interstate commerce clause in the Constitution. Justices agreed, striking down the 1930 law.
It was a major win and though not much changed, her case helped to lay the groundwork for more landmark cases that would ultimately end legal segregation.
"We can boast that we have one of the first people to challenge bus segregation and say it's not just Rosa Parks that should be recognized, it should be Irene Moran and so we have all these unsung and unknown heroes and heroines in our Virginia history that we should learn about," Ashley Craig, a community outreach specialist with the Library of Virginia, said.
Morgan ultimately made her life in New York, running a childcare center and marrying again after her first husband died.
She started college in her 60s, earning two degrees. In 2000, she was honored by Gloucester County and just one year later, she was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by then-President Bill Clinton.
In 2012, Morgan was honored by the Library of Virginia as one of the trailblazers and right now, she is part of an exhibit at the library as they celebrate 200 years.
Morgan died in 2007 in Gloucester County.
