Irene Janie (Amos) Kirkaldy (1917 - 2007)

Born 9 Apr 1917 in Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland, United States

Ancestors

Died 10 Aug 2007 at age 90 in Hayes, Gloucester, Virginia, United States

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Biography

Irene (Amos) Kirkaldy is Notable.

Irene Morgan Kirkaldy was an African-American civil rights activist.^[1]

Irene Amos was born April 9, 1917, in Baltimore, the sixth of nine children of Robert Amos and Ethel Smith.^[2]. Irene grew up in Gloucester County, Virginia. Irene's grandmother and great-uncle had been enslaved at a plantation in Hayes before the Civil War. Prior to emancipation in 1865, several generations of Irene Morgan's ancestors worked as slaves on the Tabb plantation in Gloucester County, Virginia. The owner of the plantation deeded a tract of land along Guinea Road to her great-uncle, making him one of the first ex-slave landowners in the county.

During World War II, she worked on the production line making parachutes for B-26 Marauders at the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Company in Baltimore, Maryland. There she met dock worker Sherwood Morgan and the couple soon married. They were the parents of two children; a son, Sherwood Morgan, Jr. and a daughter, Brenda Morgan. At the time of the bus incident in 1944, she had gone to Gloucester to leave her children with her mother, while she recovered from surgery.

On July 16, 1944, she boarded a Greyhound bus to return home to Baltimore from Gloucester, Virginia. She sat in the back of the bus, the spot designated for “colored” people. An hour into the trip, the driver came to Irene Morgan and the woman seated next to her with a baby in her arms, and told them both to move for a white couple just boarding. Irene refused to move, and the driver proceeded to the next town to have her arrested. She was arrested in Saluda, Middlesex County, Virginia under a state law imposing racial segregation in public facilities and transportation.

Irene consulted with attorneys to appeal her conviction and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund took up her case. She was represented by William H. Hastie, the former governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands and later a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and Thurgood Marshall, legal counsel of the NAACP. Her case, Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 328 U.S. 373 (1946), was appealed to the United States Supreme Court. On 3 June 1946 in a landmark decision, the Court ruled that the Virginia law was unconstitutional, as the Commerce clause protected interstate traffic. Neither Virginia nor other states observed the ruling and it was not enforced for decades.

In 1945, the Morgan family moved to New York City and in 1948, at the age of 32, her husband Sherwood Morgan died leaving her alone with two young children.

Having been forced to quit school at age 15 to help support her family, Irene regretted not having a formal education. Over the years she turned down opportunities to receive an honorary doctorate, arguing that she hadn’t earned it. Irene, a humble woman who valued education and had a strong sense of justice, was never interested in fame, said a granddaughter, Janine Bacquie. However, recent recognition of her place in history did bring her “a measure of joy.”

At age 68, a radio contest radio offering a scholarship to study at St. John's University, netted Irene a bachelors degree from St. John’s University in New York in 1985, and at age 73 a master’s degree in urban studies from Queen’s College in 1990.

After Irene's husband, Sherwood Morgan, died in 1948, she married Stanley Kirkaldy. They lived in Queens, New York where they ran several businesses, including a cleaning service and a child care center. Irene remained involved in combating injustice within her own community, as when she wrote letters to the Pope protesting a situation in which a Haitian family had been denied entrance into a parochial school in New York.

She later moved to Gloucester, Virginia to live in her daughter's home. Irene was a lifelong member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. She died in Gloucester, Virginia, southern portion of Gloucester County known as Guinea, on August 10, 2007^[2], while living at her daughter's home in Virginia, at age 90 from complications of Alzheimer's disease. Her husband Stanley preceded her in death by nine months. Her funeral was at Gloucester High School and she is buried in Rosewell Memorial Garden Cemetery in Hayes, Virginia.^[3]

According to the Carter Funeral Home, survivors included her daughter, Brenda Morgan Bacquie (of Gloucester, Virginia); a son, Sherwood Morgan, Jr. (of Dover, Delaware): a daughter-in-law, Theresa Morgan; two sisters, Mrs. James La Forest and Mrs. Justine Walker, five granddaughters: Deborah Barrax (Gerald), Aleah Bacquie Vaughn (Andrew), Shoshanna Bacquie Walden (Jeffrey), Janine Bacquie, and Nechesa Morgan; and four great-grandchildren, Katherine Barrax, Gerald Barrax Jr., Jordan Bacquie Morgan, and Jamila Walden.

In 2010, Irene Morgan-Kirkaldy was inducted into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame ^[4], nominated by Jaclyn R. Lichter-Vincent, President, Montgomery County Commission for Women.

Sources

1. ↑ Irene Morgan Wikipedia Page
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} Social Security: "U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007"
   Social Security Applications and Claims, 1936-2007
   Ancestry Record 60901 #37551888
   Name: Irene Janie Morgan [Irene Morgan Kirkaldy] [Irene Kirkaldy] [Irene Janie Amos]; Gender: Female; Race: Black; Birth Date: 9 Apr 1917; Birth Place: Baltimore, Maryland; Death Date: 10 Aug 2007; Father: Robert Amos; Mother: Ethel D Smith; Notes: Jul 1942: Name listed as IRENE JANIE MORGAN; Dec 1950: Name listed as IRENE MORGAN KIRKALDY; 29 Mar 1991: Name listed as IRENE JANIE KIRKALDY; 22 Aug 2007: Name listed as IRENE J KIRKALDY.
3. ↑ Memorial: Find a Grave (has image)
   Find A Grave: Memorial #192951723
   Memorial page for Irene Morgan Amos Kirkaldy (9 Apr 1917-10 Aug 2007), citing Rosewell Memorial Garden Cemetery, Hayes, Gloucester County, Virginia, USA; Maintained by Ron Stewart (contributor 47046011).
4. ↑ Maryland Commission for Women, 2010

• 1920 Census: "1920 United States Federal Census"
  Year: 1920; Census Place: Baltimore Ward 9, Baltimore (Independent City), Maryland; Roll: T625_662; Page: 18A; Enumeration District: 138
  Ancestry Sharing Link - Ancestry Record 6061 #38763270
  Jane I Amos (2), single daughter, in household of Robert Amos (34) in Baltimore Ward 9, Baltimore (Independent City), Maryland. Born in Maryland.
• 1930 Census: "1930 United States Federal Census"
  Year: 1930; Census Place: Baltimore, Maryland; Page: 13A; Enumeration District: 0572; FHL microfilm: 2340591
  Ancestry Sharing Link - Ancestry Record 6224 #105106567
  Irene Amos (14), single daughter, in household of Robert Amos (45) at 3100 Barclay St, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Born in Maryland.

See also:

• Diary of a Historian. Before Rosa Parks: Irene Amos Morgan Ancestry Part 1. April 5, 2013.
• Morgan v. Virginia. Virginia Humanities. Encyclopedia Virginia.
• Irene Kirkaldy, Educator and Activist Born. AAREG.
• "Morgan, Irene". Contemporary Black Biography. Encyclopedia.com.
• Nielsen, Euell E. "Irene Morgan Kirkaldy (1917-2007)". BlackPast.org. September 15, 2019.
• Stetson Law Review. "You Don't Have to Ride Jim Crow"
• JON CAWLEY for the Daily Press. Norfolk, Virginia. "CIVIL RIGHTS PIONEER TO BE REMEMBERED". August 17, 2007.
• Yvonne Shinhoster for the Monterey Herald. Woman in key civil rights case dies" PUBLISHED: August 14, 2007 | UPDATED: September 12, 2018.
• "New York Times". August 13, 2007.
• Ellery Jones for the Daily Press. "She always loved Gloucester. Now Irene Morgan, who fought bus segregation, has a highway marker there". Jan 31, 2020.
• Maryland Commission for Women: Annual Report 2010
• Mary Commission for Women: 2013 Induction Ceremony - Presentation of Honoree Plaque - Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame