"Sarah Keys Evans & Dovey Johnson Roundtree"

Sarah Keys Evans.

Dovey Johnson Roundtree.

In 1952 Sarah and Dovey challenged segregation law.Three years later,their challenge resulted in a key civil rights decision in which the interstate Commerce Commission struck down the "separate but equal" doctrine in interstate public bus transportation.

When Sarah Louise Keys of Washington,North Carolina,entered the WAC in 1951,boththe Army,the WAC were officially integrated organizations.After,completing her training at Ft.McCllan,Alabama,Private Keys was assigned to Ft.Dix,New Jersey,as an information clerk and receptionist at the Army hospital.InAugust 1912,Private Keys was granted a furlough to visit her parents in Washington,North Carolina,and purchased a bus ticket.Private Keys traveled in uniform,proud and excited to be going home for the first time since she joined the Army.When the bus reached Roanoke Rapids,North Carolina,after midnight,there was a change of drivers.The new driver requested that Private Keys,seated toward the front of the bus,exchange seats with a white Marine seated near the back of the bus.Private Keys,who had gained self assurance from her military experience,refused to move from her seat.The bus driver told his other passengers to move to another bus to complete the journey.He did not allow Private Keys to board the second bus.Instead,she was taken by force to the police station,charged with disorderly conduct,and held in jail overnight.She was not allowed to contact her family at 3 p.m. the following afternoon she was fined  $25.00 amd allowed to leave the jail.

 

Initially,Sarah was shocked by her experience and embarrassed about her arrest.She did not want to talk about it and preferred to forget about it.But her family rallied around her and convinced her that she needed to fight back.

Dovey Johnson Roundtree

The Keys family lost the first round of court battles,and paid costs on top of the original fine. David A.Keys, a concrete mason and cement finisher,dissatisfied with his daughter's lawyer,asked friend William Bowen to recommend legal counsel for his daughter.William suggested Dovey Johnson Roundtree,a lawyer who had been an officer in the WAC during World War II.Dovey had experienced discrimination when she attempted to apply to the newly formed Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) in 1942.A recruiter in Charlotte,North Carolina,had refused to giver her an application.Dovey obtained her application in Richmond,Virginia,and was accepted into the first Officer Candidate School Class of the WAAC.Dovey and 36 other African American women were among the first class of women commissioned as officers in the WAAC on August 29,1942.


The Army assigned Dovey as a recruiter for the states of North and South Carolina,Georgia,and Florida.She and fellow WAAC recruiters traveled constantly,speaking at high schools,colleges,community meetings,and local radio stations.During her travels,Dovey was,on occasion,forced to deal with local  "Jim Crow" laws separating African Americans and whites on buses and trains and in waiting rooms and rest rooms.Dovey's nest assignment sent her to the WAAC training center at Ft.Des Moines,Iowa,as a training center.During that time,the WAAC became the Women's Army Corps and the commander of Ft.Des Moines considered the idea of forming an all all African American training regiment staffed by African American officers.Dovey spoke eloquently against the idea at a staff meeting,and the commander decided not to form an all African American regiment.After the war,she attended Howard University Law School and began practicing law in Washington, D.C. one of her former law professors,Frank Reeves,worked for the NAACP  in the Washington,D.C.  office.When the Keys family approached the NAACP for help,Frank sent them to Dovey John Roundtree.


Dovey Johnson Roundtree and her partner Julius Robertson initially filed suit for Sarah in the US District Court for the District of Columbia in October 1952,but the court refused to hear the suit because it was out of their jurisdiction.Encouraged in her battle by her daddy,Sarah and her lawyers then filled suit with then filled suit with Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC).The suit against the North Carolina Coach Company alleged that Sarah had experienced unjust discrimination,undue and unreasonable prejudice and false arrest and imprisonment on the basis of race and color.


The initial ICC reviewing commissioner declined to accept the case,claiming that the recent Supreme Court ruling in Brown vs Board of  education "did not preclude segregation in a private business such as a bus company." Dovey and Julius filed exceptions,and they ultimately prevailed in obtaining a review by the full eleven-man commission.


Meanwhile,Sarah's second Army assignment took her to Ft.Knox,Kentucky,where she worked in the post office.Sarah was discharged from the service in 1953,and made her home in Brooklyn,New York where she became a beautician.The ICC decision was handed down in November 1955,reversing the "separate but equal" policy which had been followed since 1896.The ICC ruled that African-American passengers who paid the same amount for rail and bus fare as white passengers must receive the same service,without being shunted into seats reserved only for African Americans.


In 1958,Sarah married George Evans,a family counselor with the Bedford Stuyvesant Alcoholism Treatment Center.Her brother Elijah Keys,became the first African-American high school teacher employed by the state of Minnesota.He went on to become a college professor,teaching in San Francisco,California.Sarah and George Evans made their home in Brooklyn,New York.


Sarah & Dovey had hoped to be reunited at the 19997 Dedication of the Women's Memorial,but Dovey was unable to come.Speaking about the three-year battle,Sarah said,"I fought [that] battle as a matter of moral decency.There were many trials before triumphs.I learned first hand about mental and physical fear.I am aware of the strain involved when fighting for one's freedom human rights.Today I am very much aware of the fact that man must be open-minded and fearless before he can be honest in his assessment of himself or that of his fellow man."


In a letter to Brigadier General Vaught,Dovey stated,"The ICC's decision in the case Sarah Keys v.Carolina Coach Company...[went] to the very heart of what we as Americans have always fought for in battlegrounds around the world:Mrs Evans and I wish the plaque to stand as tribute to all women who,while serving their country in the armed forces,also fought in America's 'other war' the war for civil rights."