Morgan v. Virginia facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Morgan v. Virginia |
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| Argued March 27, 1946 Decided June 3, 1946 |
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| Full case name | Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia |
| Citations | 328 U.S. 373 (more)
66 S. Ct. 1050; 90 L. Ed. 1317
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| Court membership | |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Reed, joined by Black, Frankfurter, Douglas, Murphy |
| Concurrence | Black |
| Concurrence | Frankfurter |
| Concurrence | Rutledge |
| Dissent | Burton |
| Jackson took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. | |
Morgan v. Virginia was an important case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1946. The Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States. In this case, the Court decided that a Virginia state law was against the U.S. Constitution. This law made people of different races sit in separate sections on buses that traveled between states. This practice was called segregation.
The lawyers who argued this case were William H. Hastie and Thurgood Marshall. Thurgood Marshall later became a Supreme Court Justice himself. They used a clever way to argue the case. Instead of saying the law violated the 14th Amendment, they argued it went against the Interstate Commerce Clause. This part of the Constitution gives the U.S. government power over trade and travel between states. Even after this ruling, some Southern states did not follow the decision. They kept enforcing segregation on buses and in bus stations.
Why This Case Happened
"If something wrong happens to you, you should try to fix it," said Irene Morgan. She was an African-American woman who was arrested in Virginia. She refused to move from the "White" section to the "Colored" section on a Greyhound bus. She believed the best way to fix it was to go to the Supreme Court.
In 1944, when this happened, Irene Morgan worked at a company that made airplanes. She was on her way back to Baltimore, Maryland, after visiting her mother in Virginia. The bus driver told her to move, but she refused. She was then arrested in Middlesex County.
What Happened Next
In 1960, another Supreme Court case called Boynton v. Virginia built on the Morgan ruling. This new ruling said that bus terminals, like waiting rooms and restaurants, also could not be segregated for interstate travel. However, many Southern states still did not obey these rulings. They continued to arrest or remove African Americans who tried to use "whites-only" facilities.
Because states were not following the law, groups of people called Freedom Riders started protests in 1961. They rode buses into the Southern states to challenge the segregation rules. Their actions helped to show that the rulings from Morgan v. Virginia and Boynton v. Virginia were not being followed.
