Overview

As a member of the integrated Women’s Army Corps, Private First Class Sarah Keys served her country as a receptionist at Fort Dix, New Jersey. When she boarded a bus home to North Carolina in 1952, she never expected to be arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for refusing to move to the rear so a white Marine could take her seat. Her landmark 1955 Civil Rights victory, “Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company” not only desegregated interstate bus travel, it also provided the legal precedent needed during the 1961 Freedom Rides to pressure the Interstate Commerce Commission to properly enforce its Sarah Keys ruling. Often overlooked in many accounts of the Civil Rights era, her arrest and victory are crucial milestones in the fight against segregation. Riding into History draws on years of personal conversations with Sarah Keys Evans as well as extensive research to present a biography of this hero and her role in the struggle for civil rights alongside the long history of many other Black Americans, especially women, who protested racial segregation in interstate travel.

Full Product Details

9781478033165

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Reviews

“It took many heroes to overturn legally enforced racial segregation. Students learn about Rosa Parks, but they also should learn about Private First-Class Sarah Keys.”—Alan J. Singer, author of, Class-Conscious Coal Miners: The Emergence of a Working-Class Movement in Central Pennsylvania

Author Information

Amy Nathan is the author of more than fifteen books, including Together: An Inspiring Response to the “Separate-but-Equal” Supreme Court Decision that Divided America, Making Time for Making Music, Round and Round Together, and A Ride to Remember: A Civil Rights Story. She is a native of Baltimore who now lives outside New York City.

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