GLOUCESTER, Va.–Irene Morgan Kirkaldy, a black woman whose refusal to give up her bus seat to white passengers led to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision more than a decade before Rosa Parks gained recognition for doing the same, has died at 90.
The cause was complications of Alzheimer's disease, said her granddaughter Janine Bacquie.
Kirkaldy, born Irene Morgan in Baltimore in 1917, was arrested in 1944 for refusing to give up her seat on a Greyhound bus heading from Gloucester to Baltimore, and for resisting arrest.
The Supreme Court held in June 1946 that Virginia law requiring races to be separated on interstate buses – even making passengers change seats during their journey if the number of passengers changed – was an invalid interference in interstate commerce.
At the time, the case received little attention, but it paved the way for civil rights victories to come, including Parks's famous stand on a bus in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955.
In 2001, president Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Citizens Medal – the second highest civilian honour in the United States.
Kirkaldy said she willingly paid a $100 (U.S.) fine for resisting arrest because she did kick the officer who tried to remove her from the bus. But she refused to pay a $10 fine for violating Virginia's segregation law.
She lived out of the spotlight for decades after the case, earning a college degree in 1985 at age 68.
From the Star's wire services
