Lesson 178:
Sarah Keys Evans
An ongoing illustrative history study
This piece originally posted on 03/15/2025
"Black and white women kept the spark going, and I don't think they've been given enough credit. Each of us have our own story."
A full six days before Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her bus seat, there came the ruling Keys v. Carolina Coach Company. At the heart of that decision was PFC Sarah Keys Evans, who on August 1, 1952 had been travelling by bus on leave from Fort Dix, NJ to her family's home in North Carolina. During a middle-of-the-night stop in Roanoke Rapids, NC for a change of drivers, the new driver insisted that 23 year-old Keys give up her seat to a white Marine, to which she refused and was --predictably-- arrested and jailed, and also fined $25 for "disorderly conduct."
Born Sarah Louise Keys in 1928 to David Keys, himself a WWI Navy veteran, Sarah followed in her father's footsteps and enlisted in the Women's Army Corps (WAC) in 1951. Well-versed in the law and knowing full well the extent of her rights, Keys remained quietly defiant even as she was placed in a solitary jail cell for 13 hours. With her father's help, the NAACP took up Keys' case; she was in fact represented by a fellow WWII servicewoman, Dovey Roundtree: an earlier 1946 ordinance had already made clear that buses originating in the North did not have to comply with local Southern laws. While the initial challenge was struck down, a subsequent appeal before the Interstate Commerce Commission, ultimately ruled in Keys' favour and outlawed the segregation of Black passengers in buses traveling across state lines.
"I knew I had been unjustly accused of disorderly conduct. I was willing to prove that I wasn't disorderly. There was nothing disorderly going on that night."
Keys v. Carolina Coach Company is today regarded as a landmark ruling, carrying nearly the same significance as Brown v. Board Of Education, invoked by then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy Sr., when he spoke in support of the Freedom Riders. Today the city of Roanoke Rapids acknowledges the slight and even declared August 1, 2020 as "Sarah Keys Evans Day." Sarah passed away quite recently on November 16, 2023, at the age of 95. A bill has been introduced this very month (March 2025) by Congressman Don Davis (NC-01) to posthumously award Evans the Congressional Gold Medal.
In the meantime, listen to Sarah tell her own story at: https://sarahkevansproject.com/who-is-sarah-keys-evans/. And for further reading, crack open a copy of Take A Seat - Make A Stand, by Amy Nathan --an author who herself ran into more than one publishing roadblock, as multiple editors insisted that Rosa Parks's story "was sufficient to the subject."
Next lesson - Lesson 179: Norma Merrick Sklarek
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