“Three years before Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to move to the back of a city bus in Alabama, Sarah Keys had led the way with a similar act of courage.”

As a member of the integrated Women’s Army Corps, Private First Class Sarah Keys served her country as a receptionist at Fort Dix, New Jersey.

When she boarded a bus home to North Carolina in 1952, she never expected to be arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for refusing to move to the rear so a white Marine could take her seat.

Her landmark 1955 civil rights victory, “Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company,” not only desegregated interstate bus travel, it also provided the legal precedent needed during the 1961 Freedom Rides to pressure the Interstate Commerce Commission to properly enforce its Sarah Keys ruling. Often overlooked in many accounts of the civil rights era, her arrest and victory are crucial milestones in the fight against segregation.

“Riding into History” draws on years of personal conversations with Sarah Keys Evans, as well as extensive research to present a biography of this hero and her role in the struggle for civil rights, alongside the long history of many other Black Americans, especially women, who protested racial segregation in interstate travel.

Riding into History:

The Surprising Story of Sarah Keys Evans and the Fight to Desegregate Bus Tavel

By Amy Nathan with Sarah Keys Evans

Duke University Press

Release date: March 24

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