PFC Sarah L. Keys-Evans Oral History Part 3

title:

PFC Sarah L. Keys-Evans Oral History Part 3

creator:

Keys-Evans, Sarah L. (1929 April 18 -

subject:

Women's Army Corps (WAC)

description:

Part 3 of 4. Sarah Keys-Evans was born on April 18, 1929 in Washington, North Carolina. Growing up, her father was a farmer, and during World War II he worked at the Navy Yard in cement finish and cement mason. After graduating high school in 1948, Sarah went to a nursing school in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, but struggled in classes and left nursing school after a few months. She then moved into a convent and found work in New York until she went to a recruiting office and signed up for the Army in October of 1951. She enlisted only 3 years after the military was desegregated in 1948, and many of her early experiences were in areas that had fully integrated. She had basic training at Fort Lee, Virginia and then moved to her permanent assignment at Fort Dix, New Jersey in early 1952 where she worked as a receptionist and permission clerk at the hospital. One day, she got a bus ticket to go see her family in North Carolina. It had been several years since the Irene Morgan v. Virginia Supreme Court decision had desegregated interstate travel, something that her father was sure to explain fully to his children after it happened in 1946. Despite the desegregation of interstate travel, however, when the bus driver was checking tickets in Roanoke Rapids he told Keys-Evans to move to the back of the bus, which she refused to do. The driver refused to leave the station and called the police, leading to Sarah's arrest for supposed disorderly conduct. The police didn't even recognize that she was in uniform until they had made it to the jail. The chief of police said she could leave in the morning if she paid $25, which she did. She then spent thirteen hours that night in the Roanoke Rapids jail, and the next morning the police brought her back to the bus stop and told her exactly where to sit, and then the bus left and she made it to Washington, North Carolina. She told her family what happened after they went to church that morning, and the returned to Roanoke Rapids to get her $25 back in court—something the chief of police told her would be possible. She lost two appeals to get that money back, and eventually filed a complaint at Fort Dix with the Interstate Commerce Commission in September 1953. The ICC didn't rule on it until 1955, after Sarah had already been discharged and was in beauty school. Sarah and her team did win that case, which moved the country closer to enforcing the desegregation ruling made in the 1946 Morgan v. Virginia case, concluding within weeks of Rosa Parks arrest in December of 1955. A transcript of this interview is available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Scott, Kate M.

date:

2006-01-30

type:

Audio

format:

Cassette

identifier:

284.03; 2012.284

source:

OHP

language:

English

relation:

456205

coverage:

Korean War (1950-1953) | 1951-1953

rights:

Unrestricted