Biography
Lottie E. Taylor was a Black bus passenger who challenged segregated seating while traveling from Washington, D.C., into Northern Virginia in 1946. Fairfax police forcibly removed her from the bus after she refused to move to the rear, and she was prosecuted for disorderly conduct. Represented by attorney James H. Raby, she successfully challenged the prosecution in the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals in 1948. The court held that refusing to comply with the carrier’s seating rule did not itself constitute disorderly conduct.
