Michigan history rightly celebrates late Detroiter Rosa Parks as the woman who took on the burden of the Montgomery bus boycott by refusing to give up her bus seat during the Jim Crow Era. But she was not the first or the only one.
During World War II — as the country began to mass produce military hardware and supplies on a a scale not seen before — hundreds of thousands of Black American women found jobs, that for some required them to travel out of the state and for others provided economic opportunities to be able to travel on their own across state lines for the first time.
Speaking with Stateside host April Baer, Eastern Michigan University history professor Mary-Elizabeth Murphy discussed her new book, "Policing Passengers: Black Women and the Fight Against Bus Violence." Her book tells the stories of women who faced intense physical violence and harassment from bus companies, including Greyhound, while traveling across state lines.
There were two types of buses that existed in the American transportation landscape at the time, explained Murphy. The two types were city buses and interstate buses.
"Black women often rode interstate buses when they were visiting friends or family, especially in the eras of war and the Great Migration," she said.
While it was a small percentage of the population of working women during this industrial boom, Murphy said, for many Black women these jobs positioned them as key members of the industrial labor force of the time.
Despite Black women becoming some of the most consistent riders of interstate buses, bus companies did not want Black women as passengers.
"Black women were some for the most consistent riders and they would trade passenger stories, and they quickly learned the etiquette of bus segregation," Murphy said.
Some women, she said, faced physical beatings while ridings and others were even banned from using restrooms and restaurants at rest stops.
Between the 1920s and 1940s, African American women filed dozens of lawsuits against bus companies, like the case of Paulina Stevens from Detroit.
In 1929, Stevens, a 36-year old migrant from Georgia, was living in an interracial marriage in Black Bottom in Detroit when she boarded a Greyhound bus to travel to Lima, Ohio.
"On the way back, she was put in the very back of the bus and rain poured (on) it and soaked her clothes," Murphy said. "So by the time she arrived in Detroit, she was ill."
Stevens had very little formal education, but she knew that as a Michigander, she was protected by a civil rights statue — prompting her to sue Greyhound.
"Her case went to Detroit, and a judge awarded her $100 in damages, but then Greyhound appealed the case and it traveled to a district court in Ann Arbor," Murphy said.
It was there that Washtenaw County Circuit Court Judge George Washington Samples ruled in favor of Stevens and called out Greyhound over its discriminatory practices against African Americans.
"He was terrified that if states like Michigan didn't step into prevent discrimination on the part of these bus companies that African Americans would revolt," Murphy added. "So he increased her [Stevens'] award by $250, which in today's money is about $4,000 dollars."
It was Stevens' lawsuit that set a precedent for Detroit resident Lois Wright to become a bus driver — nearly two decades later — when the bus industry was hit hard by the crisis of World War II.
"Because there are so many wartime jobs, there aren't enough workers to drive city buses in Detroit — and so in early 1943, newspapers report that there are over 200 buses that are sitting idle in parking lots in Detroit because there are no workers to drive them, because bus driving is a white man's job," Murphy said.
Eventually, the need forced Detroit to relent and hire Wright, who became the first Black woman bus driver in the United States.
It was not until 1946 that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation on interstate commerce posed an undue burden.
Full interview with author Mary-Elizabeth Murphy
April Baer: This is Stateside. I'm April Baer. Michigan history rightly celebrates late-life Detroiter Rosa Parks as the woman who took on the burden of the Montgomery bus boycott, becoming an icon of the civil rights movement in the process.
But Rosa Parks is not the only story. A professor at Eastern Michigan University has written a new book highlighting the histories of women riding to work, family and opportunity, and what happened to them along the way. The book is called, "Policing Passengers: Black Women and the Fight Against Bus Violence." The author is my guest, Professor Murphy, who teaches history, philosophy and women's and gender studies at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti. Mary-Elizabeth, welcome to Stateside.
Murphy: Thank you so much for having me.
Baer: You write that before Rosa, there was Rosie the Riveter. Can you lay some groundwork for us about how the wartime industrial economy was a pivotal place for the kind of battles you wanted to write about?
Murphy: During World War II, about 600,000 African American women were able to obtain wartime jobs. Even though this was a small percentage, it was a game changer because, for the first time, Black women had labor that tied them to the state. My book chronicles how Black women used bus rides to press for full citizenship rights in the United States. The Rosie I talk about is Irene Morgan, who was a war worker in Baltimore. She labored at an aircraft plant.
Baer: This was a whole other piece of history that I was unaware of — the fact that there was interstate work during the years when women were taking a bigger role in industrial labor.
Murphy: Absolutely. There were two types of buses in the American transportation landscape at this point: city buses, like the one Rosa Parks rode, and interstate buses. Black women often rode interstate buses when visiting friends or family, especially during wartime and the Great Migration.
In 1944, Irene Morgan was visiting her mother in Gloucester County, Virginia. After a restorative stay, she needed to return to Baltimore for her job at the aircraft plant. While riding a Greyhound bus, she sat in a designated seat for African Americans. But because buses were overcrowded during World War II, the driver ordered her to move. She refused and was arrested.
She contested her case, which went to the Supreme Court of Virginia, where it was rejected. The U.S. Supreme Court later agreed to hear the case and, in 1946, ruled that racial segregation in interstate commerce posed an undue burden.
Baer: Irene Morgan's case going to the Supreme Court seems like a major moment in civil rights and transportation law. Why have most schoolchildren never heard of her, while so many people visit the Henry Ford and see the bus Rosa Parks rode?
Murphy: I think there are two big issues. First, the Morgan case, while very important, was not enforced. That's why African Americans had to continue fighting bus segregation and stage the Freedom Rides. They also had a Ride of Reconciliation to test enforcement. Even though the law was on their side, Southern states refused to follow it.
The second issue is that the Montgomery bus boycott ended in victory, signaling that segregation on city buses was over. As you pointed out, there is a difference between city and interstate buses.
Baer: I'd like to talk more about that. Interstate bus service is something low-income people still rely on for long-distance trips. Did you find evidence of what bus companies thought about Black women as a target market in the early days of interstate bus service?
Murphy: Bus companies did not want Black women passengers. My research demonstrated that bus companies, particularly Greyhound, based their bus drivers on police officers. They drew on military and police practices to instruct drivers to police Black women passengers.
Baer: I can't unsee that now that I've seen some of the diagrams and other information you shared in the book.
Murphy: It's stunning to see how law enforcement was the model. But it makes sense because enforcing racial segregation on a bus was difficult. It's such a cramped space, and the driver had to wield authority like a police officer.
Even though thousands of African American women traveled on interstate buses during this period — whether as part of the Great Migration, to visit friends and family, advance their education or attend conventions — the bus industry tried to dissuade them from riding.
They were segregated and put in the back of the bus, whether in the North or South. They were also banned from vehicles altogether. Bus drivers used their uniforms and accessories, including guns, billy clubs and ticket punchers, to assault and harass Black women passengers.
Baer: The literature of the period from within the transportation industry was also wildly racist, with caricatures in illustrations that are eye-popping today. How did you find all this archived magazine material and industry trade publications?
Murphy: I traveled to two major archives in Chicago and Cleveland to investigate the Greyhound bus company papers. In Chicago, I made two discoveries. First, Greyhound hired its head of bus drivers from the New York City Police Department. In 1929, the company appointed Marcus Dow, who had spent years in the department learning racial policing. They made him the model for all bus drivers.
The archive only had a few boxes, and archivists warned me I wouldn't find anything. But I found gold. Greyhound and other bus companies offered an in-bus magazine, similar to the passenger magazines available on airplanes today. There were only a few issues, but they were crucial. They demonstrated that Greyhound and other bus companies wanted to other passengers of color, first on the page and then on the bus.
After finding fragments of those periodicals, I went to the Library of Congress and read every travel issue Greyhound had circulated. This helped me understand how the company constructed violent and racist mythologies about Black passengers, as well as Indigenous passengers, Mexican passengers and other immigrants.
Baer: Black women did become customers of Greyhound and other transportation providers. You write about a woman named Irene Davis, who in 1931 purchased a round-trip bus ticket to visit her family. Can you talk about how her trip went sideways?
Murphy: Irene Davis was a resident of Philadelphia, and in 1931, she purchased a Greyhound bus ticket to travel home for Christmas. This was common during the Great Migration, when African American women traveled during the holidays or summer to visit family.
The bus trip down was uneventful, but on the way back, she discovered that she and five other Black passengers had been put in the very back of the bus, sharing a crowded seat. She noticed that the driver was rough and violent with her. She also discovered that African American women were banned from restrooms and restaurants at rest stops.
She said she had seen Greyhound advertisements and thought it was a company that valued customer service, but she was about to change her opinion.
Baer: She was identified on the bus as an aggressive or problem passenger.
Murphy: Yes, absolutely.
Baer: She was singled out by the driver. What ended up happening on her trip?
Murphy: She was so upset by her mistreatment that, when she returned home to Philadelphia, she wrote two letters. First, she wrote to Greyhound, saying she was a paying customer who had spent her hard-earned money on a ticket and was incredibly dissatisfied.
She also wrote to the NAACP, describing her experiences and the driver's violence. This showed the NAACP that hundreds of African Americans traveling on Greyhound buses were not safe. The NAACP was already aware that many African Americans were experiencing police brutality, but this introduced the organization to bus brutality.
Baer: You found examples in publications like the Chicago Defender and other institutions of the Black press showing this wasn't limited to the Jim Crow South, although the book includes plenty of examples from that region. How did this fit into the broader civil rights movement at the time?
Murphy: At this point in the Black freedom struggle, African Americans were pressing for many issues. By the mid-1920s, buses were becoming widely used. African Americans were fighting for economic justice, the right to vote, an end to sexual violence and police brutality, and against segregation.
Buses were important because nearly every African American could relate to the experience. By 1935, more Americans were riding buses than trains.
Black women were also teaching African American organizations how to wage this fight. I discovered that African American women filed 43 lawsuits against bus companies during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. This was an unprecedented amount of legal activism.
The NAACP was somewhat hesitant to take on these struggles. Black women did the work of hiring lawyers, contacting the NAACP and taking bus companies to court. Their activism taught the NAACP how to litigate these cases.
Baer: I want to circle back to city buses. There was a huge shift toward the modern layout of public transportation, with city buses replacing streetcars. What did you notice about the flashpoints in city and county public transportation? Much of the book focuses on interstate lines like Greyhound, but was there anything about the local busing struggle that hadn't been apparent to you before?
Murphy: One narrative that was new to me was that, when many cities, especially Southern cities, switched from streetcars to buses, Black women were some of the most consistent riders. They would trade passenger stories.
I found it interesting that African American women quickly learned the etiquette of bus segregation. For example, I write about a teacher named Olivia Schenkel who lived in Louisiana. She rode the bus every week to travel between her home and school. She had to sit in the back of the bus and ring the bell for her stop.
One day, the technology broke, so she called out to the driver that she needed to exit to get to work. He ignored her, resulting in a physical altercation in which he punched her in the face and she fell to the floor.
Baer: There are ample examples of what was happening across the country in the book. What were some things you learned about Michigan history?
Murphy: I highlight the legal cases of two Black women who had important bus segregation cases in Michigan. I'll talk about one.
In 1929, I discovered a Black migrant woman named Paulina Stevens, a 36-year-old migrant from Georgia. She was living in an interracial marriage in Black Bottom Detroit. Her husband worked as a coat checker in a nightclub, and Stevens boarded a Greyhound bus to travel to Lima, Ohio.
On the way back, she was put in the very back of the bus, where rain poured in and soaked her clothes. By the time she arrived in Detroit, she was ill with a cold.
Stevens was a Black woman with a third-grade education, but she had considerable legal knowledge. She knew that, as a new Michigan resident, she was protected by a civil rights statute. She sued Greyhound, and a Detroit judge awarded her $100 in damages.
Greyhound appealed the case, which went to a district court in Ann Arbor. A prominent judge named George W. Sample heard the case and criticized the bus company for discriminating against African Americans.
Baer: There's so much extraordinary detail from the period. Judge Sample actually warned Greyhound that the Bolsheviks might come for African American citizens if the company didn't change its practices. It was a remarkable argument.
Murphy: He was concerned that if states like Michigan didn't step in to prevent discrimination by bus companies, African Americans would revolt. It was a politically volatile climate. He increased her award by $250, bringing it to $350, which is about $4,000 in today's money.
This shows that states like Michigan took bus discrimination seriously. Migrant women also understood their legal rights and knew they could sue in court as new residents. If Paulina Stevens had still lived in Georgia, she never would have been able to try a case like this. It signaled some racial fairness, especially in the Midwest.
Michigan's role continued during World War II. The bus industry was hit hard by the wartime labor crisis. With so many wartime jobs available, there weren't enough workers to drive city buses in Detroit. In early 1943, newspapers reported that more than 200 buses were sitting idle in parking lots because there weren't enough workers. Bus driving had been considered a white man's job and was increasingly becoming a white woman's job.
Detroit relented and hired Lois Wright, also a migrant from Georgia, who became the first Black woman bus driver in the United States.
Baer: Murphy's new book is called "Policing Passengers: Black Women and the Fight Against Bus Violence." Mary-Elizabeth, thank you so much for this book. It really opened my eyes to a lot of things. We appreciate it.
Murphy: Thank you so much for having me.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and content.
