In case, number 33 U.S. 28, Bob-Lo Excursion Co. v. People of the State of Michigan , a high school student named Sarah Elizabeth Ray was prevented on going on a school outing to an amusement park because she was African American.

There was a Canadian company that owned most of the land on Bois Blanc (Bob-Lo) Island in Ontario. They didn’t let Sarah on the ferry operated by the Bob-Lo Company because of her race. She was African American.  All “negroes and disorderly persons” were forbidden access to the island by company policy. The case took place in Detroit, Michigan in 1948.

Court Opinion Delivered by: Justice Wiley Rutledge
Attorney for the Plaintiff: Wilson W. Mills
Attorney for the Defendant: Edmund E. Shepherd

The Recorders Court in Detroit along with The Michigan Supreme Court found that the Bob-Lo Company was in violation of the Michigan’s Civil Right’s Act and was fined $25.

The company appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court saying the fine that they reserved was unconstitutional because they were a small company. The Bob-Lo attorneys looked back on another other case, Morgan v. Virginia. The case came about because a black women, who just had surgery, wouldn’t move to the back of the bus when a white couple came to take her place. The bus driver told her to move but the women refused to move because of her medical condition. The Virginia segregation law was overthrown. The law regulated state travel in Virginia.

Bob-Lo did not win because the only entry way to the island was through the Bob-Lo company ferry boat. People lived on the Bob-Lo Island so they could not keep people from going onto the island. This court case prepared the way to the Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954.

Thank you for reading – Coleman Clark