The Tribune

Montgomery. Ala.--A City judge fined a white man $50 on Monday on charges of slugging a Negro woman who had a "Constitutional Right" to keep her seat on one of this city's newly integrated buses.

In the first incident of violence in several months in connection with the transit integration, James Grice, white, 31, was accused of striking Miss Josephine Boldin, 19, with a wrench.

Grice had in turn charged Miss Boldin and two other Negroes with assault and battery as the result of a general melee. Miss Boldin and one of the women who was said to have gone to her assistance were acquitted. The charges against the other woman were not pressed.

Judge Eugene Loe said he did not base his verdict on the Supreme Court order to integrate Montgomery buses because "the evidence clearly shows Grice was at fault."

However. he said. he "took into consideration the fact that the Negro woman had a constitutional right to sit where she was and any citizen would have been justified. black or white, in helping someone who was being hit with a monkey wrench."

Grice will appeal his $50 fine. He is free under $100 bond.

Grice testified he gave his seat to a white woman and then asked Miss Boldin to move to the rear of the bus.

Grice asserted the woman slapped him.

The woman testified Grice struck her with a wrench when she refused to give him her seat.

Some eight witnesses, in what city clerk Silas Carter called "conflicting testimony." testified two other Negro women, Annie Burch, 37, and Johnnie Mae Eaves, 32, joined in the fight.

Bus driver H. A. Burks said he "didn't know what was going on until they scuffled up to the very front of the bus."

"I just opened the door and let them scuffle on the outside," he said.

The women were defended by Attorney Fred Gray, counsel for the local chapter of the NAACP.