In June 1946 the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Virginia law requiring racial segregation on commercial interstate buses as a violation of the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. The appellant Irene Morgan, riding an interstate Greyhound bus in 1944 had been arrested and convicted when she refused to give up her seat to a white person.
Most southern states refused to acknowledge the ruling and continued to practice segregation in almost all parts of society. In-state bus segregation continued well into the 1950s.