All he wanted was a sandwich and a cup of tea while his bus made a brief stop in Richmond, Va. But Bruce Boynton, a law student at Washington's Negro Howard University, wanted to eat his snack in the white section of the bus terminal's segregated lunchroom. A restaurant official ordered Boynton to leave, and when Boynton declined, called the cops. Boynton was fined $10 in police court, and his conviction was upheld by Virginia's Supreme Court.
Boynton kept right on fighting the case. He appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court—where lawyers supplied by the National Association for the Advancement...