DIRECTOR, WRITER, PRODUCER | JAMES JONES

Sarah Louise Keys, age 22, in the Women's Army Corps, stationed in Fort Dix, New Jersey, on August 1, 1952, boarded a bus from Trenton, New Jersey, to her home in Washington, North Carolina, her first visit home since joining the military. When the bus stopped in Roanoke Rapids shortly after midnight to change drivers, the new driver told Keys to give up her seat for a white Marine. She refused. Everyone had to get off the bus, and he let everyone get on another bus, but not Keys. Two policemen took her by each arm and escorted her to a police car. Jailers put her in a cell with a mattress so dirty she was afraid to sit down, so she stood all night in full uniform, including her one-and-a-half-inch heels. She paced the floor all night, and cried and prayed. She was released the next day and fined. When she got home, her family, who had had no idea where she was, was shocked to hear what had happened. Her father encouraged his daughter to take legal action. After all, in 1946, the Supreme Court had declared state laws enforcing segregation on interstate buses unconstitutional, in Morgan v. Virginia, though a loophole allowed private companies to make their own rules. The NAACP referred the Keys family to attorney Dovey Roundtree, who filed a complaint with the ICC on her behalf. It was initially dismissed by an examiner, but Congressman Adam Clayton Powell persuaded the full commission to hear the complaint. After a long legal fight, Sarah won, which led to a landmark ruling by the Interstate Commerce Commission that prohibited segregation under the Interstate Commerce Act.

In respectful remembrance of Sarah Key Evans, 1928 - November 16, 2023.