GLOUCESTER COUNTY, Va. (WAVY) — Rosa Parks is known as the woman who refused to give up her bus seat during segregration.
But before there was Rosa, there was Irene Morgan — and Morgan was from Gloucester.
Earlier this month, the Gloucester community came together to unveil a historical marker honoring Morgan.
“Her life is an example of just one person making a stand to make a difference that would affect an entire country,” her granddaughter Shoshanna Bacqui-Walden said.
It’s the second historical highway marker that commemorates Morgan’s achievements. The state says there are only a select few people who have multiple markers. And, Morgan rightly earned hers.
“There’s another marker in Saluda, but this is where her story began,” said her other granddaughter, Aleah Bacqui Vaughn.
The newest marker is at the location where Morgan boarded a Greyhound bus in 1944.
She was visiting her mother, who lived down the street, and was headed back to Baltimore to visit her doctor. Morgan had just suffered a miscarriage and was trying to get cleared to work for the war efforts, according to her family.
Morgan was already seated in the back of the bus, when she was told to give up the seat. She refused.
“The other thing that angered her is there was a woman, a mother, sitting next to her with an infant in her hands. She was told to give up her seat as well and she was outraged by this,” Bacqui-Vaugn said.
Her family says Morgan always showed concern for others as well. But, they don’t believe she expected her refusal to make such a huge difference.
Morgan was arrested. Her case made it way to the Supreme Court, where she was represented by NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall.
And in 1946, the court ruled to desegregate interstate bus travel.
“So many people were inspired by what she did. It was just this one woman, who wasn’t even 5’6″, who was standing up against the sheriff, who was threatening to beat her and just not bowing down… not giving in,” Bacqui-Vaughn said.
Her family says Morgan was remarkable, not only as a civil rights activist, but as a mother. She invited the homeless in for Thanksgiving dinners, housed them, and even helped desegregate a Catholic school by writing to the pope, according to her family.
Morgan died in 2007, but her family wants others to remember her examples to help make their own changes in the world.
“There’s all kind of injustice happening around us and it’s important for us to stand up because the struggle will always continue,” Bacqui-Vaugn said.
Morgan was awarded the Presidential Citizens Award in 2001 by President Bill Clinton. Gloucester also honored her at their 350th anniversary.
