1. Irene Amos Morgan, later known as Irene Morgan Kirkaldy, was an African-American woman from Baltimore, Maryland, who was arrested in Middlesex County, Virginia, in 1944 under a state law imposing racial segregation in public facilities and transportation.
Irene Morgan was traveling on an interstate bus that operated under federal law and regulations.
Irene Morgan refused to give up her seat in what the driver said was the "white section".
Irene Morgan was represented by William H Hastie, the former governor of the US Virgin Islands and later a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and Thurgood Marshall, legal counsel of the NAACP.
Irene Morgan went to local schools and was raised as a Seventh-day Adventist.
Irene Morgan worked on the production line for the B-26 Marauder.
Irene Morgan later married Stanley Kirkaldy and lived with him in New York City.
Five years later Irene Morgan earned a master's degree in Urban Studies from Queens College.
Irene Morgan had been dealing with a recent miscarriage and was visiting her mother in Gloucester County, Virginia, to physically and mentally recover from the ordeal.
On July 16,1944, Irene Morgan boarded the Greyhound bus and had sat down next to another African-American woman who was carrying an infant.
Irene Morgan had been charged with resisting arrest and violating Virginia's Jim Crow transit law.
Irene Morgan agreed to pay a $100 fine for resisting arrest but refused to plead to the segregation violation.
Irene Morgan then took her case to the US Supreme Court and won.
Irene Morgan later was appointed as a US Supreme Court justice.
In 1960, in Boynton v Virginia, the Supreme Court extended the Morgan ruling to bus terminals used in interstate bus service.
Irene Morgan's case inspired the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation, during which 16 activists from the Chicago-based Congress of Racial Equality rode on interstate buses through the Upper South to test the enforcement of the Supreme Court ruling.
Irene Morgan was a lifelong member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Irene Morgan died in Gloucester, Virginia on August 10,2007, at her daughter's home, at age 90 from complications of Alzheimer's disease.