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Title 48, § 301(31a, b, c), Code of Alabama of 1940, as amended, which provide:

"§ 301(31a). Separate accommodations for white and colored races.—All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for the white and colored races, but such accommodations for the races shall be equal. All motor transportation companies or operators of vehicles carrying passengers for hire in this state, whether intrastate or interstate passengers, shall at all times provide equal but separate accommodations on each vehicle for the white and colored races. The conductor or agent of the motor transportation company in charge of any vehicle is authorized and required to assign each passenger to the division of the vehicle designated for the race to which the passenger belongs; and, if the passenger refuses to occupy the division to which he is assigned, the conductor or agent may refuse to carry the passenger on the vehicle; and, for such refusal, neither the conductor or agent of the motor transportation company nor the motor transportation company shall be liable in damages. Any motor transportation company or person violating the provisions of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, shall be fined not more than five hundred dollars for each offense; and each day's violation of this section shall constitute a separate offense.

Section 10, Chapter 6, Code of the City of Montgomery, 1952, which provides:

"Every person operating a bus line in the city shall provide equal but separate accommodations for white people and negroes on his buses, by requiring the employees in charge thereof to assign passengers seats on the vehicles under their charge in such manner as to separate the white people from the negroes, where there are both white and negroes on the same car; provided, however, that negro nurses having in charge white children or sick or infirm white persons, may be assigned seats among white people.

"Nothing in this section shall be construed as prohibiting the operators of such bus lines from separating the races by means of separate vehicles if they see fit."

Section 11 of Chapter 6, Montgomery City Code of 1952, further provides:

"Any employee in charge of a bus operated in the city shall have the powers of a police officer of the city while in actual charge of any bus, for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of the preceding section, and it shall be unlawful for any passenger to refuse or fail to take a seat among those assigned to the race to which he belongs, at the request of any such employee in charge, if there is such a seat vacant."

The members of the Board of Commissioners and the Chief of Police of the City of Montgomery in their answers to the complaint admit "that they seek to enforce the statutes of the State of Alabama and the ordinances of the City of Montgomery, Alabama", and further aver that "segregation of privately owned buses within cities within the State of Alabama is in accordance with the laws of the State of Alabama and the City of Montgomery."

The Montgomery City Lines, Inc., admits that it has operated, and pursuant to orders of a State Court, continues to operate "its buses as required by the Statutes and Ordinances set out in the Complaint requiring it to provide equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races". Without dispute the evidence is to the effect that, other than being separate, such accommodations are equal.

The defendants, Blake and Cleere, admit they are employees of the Montgomery City Lines and drivers of its buses, that as such they have acted pursuant to orders of said Company which "has operated its buses on the basis of racial segregation as required by said statutes and ordinances". They deny that as drivers of said buses they are exercising the powers of police officers in the enforcement of said statutes and ordinances.