Supreme Court strikes down bus segregation in interstate travel

The Supreme Court rules in Morgan v. Virginia on June 3, 1946, that Virginia cannot enforce racial segregation on interstate buses. Irene Morgan had refused to give up her seat on a Greyhound bus traveling from Virginia to Maryland. The Court says state segregation rules burden interstate commerce when applied to passengers crossing state lines. The ruling does not end all travel segregation, but it becomes an important precedent for later freedom rides and interstate desegregation campaigns. Black resistance to segregation in travel produces a national legal challenge before the better-known bus boycotts and Freedom Rides.