The first awards from the Irene Morgan Scholarship Fund and its Board of Directors will be made this year to 2023 graduates of Gloucester High School, in amounts of $1,200, $800 and $500.

Applications are due April 14. For information, contact Yvonne D. Ray at trobby88@aol.com or 804-642-5714.

A release said the new fund celebrates and honors civil rights pioneer Irene Morgan, a Gloucester County native.

“Both warm and courageous, Morgan did not set out to become a hero,” a release stated. “Still, she became a hero on July 16, 1944, the moment she stood her ground and refused to give up her seat on a Greyhound bus headed to Baltimore, Maryland, from Gloucester, Virginia. Thurgood Marshall and other NAACP lawyers took the case to the Supreme Court. She won the landmark Supreme Court Case, Morgan v Virginia (1946). That win changed the lives and futures of many African-Americans.”

Her 110th birthday will be observed April 9, 2023.
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