Rosa Parks’ decision to face arrest rather than move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama led to one of the first significant protest campaigns in the civil rights era. Her bravery in December of 1955 sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a year-long mass protest initiated by the Montgomery Improvement Association. 26-year-old pastor Martin Luther King Jr led the group.
In February of 1956, activist and lawyer Fred Gray filed a legal petition claiming Alabama’s pro-segregation laws were unconstitutional. Gray argued the segregation of blacks and whites on busses violated the 14th amendment. In the case that would be known as Browder v. Gayle, Gray listed Aurelia S. Browder, Susie McDonald, Claudette Colvin, Mary Louise Smith, and Jeanetta Reese as plaintiffs.
They were four African-American women who were victims of discrimination on Montgomery buses. Reese would later be removed from the case following white intimidation. W.A. Gayle was Montgomery’s mayor at the time.
Parks, who was facing prosecution on other charges, was not included in the lawsuit to avoid the case getting bogged down by in state court.
On June 5th, 1956, a panel of three U.S. district judges ruled 2-1 in favor of the plaintiffs. The court found that Montgomery’s bus segregation laws “deny and deprive plaintiffs and other Negro citizens similarly situated of the equal protection of the laws and due process of law secured by the Fourteenth Amendment.” The Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision was cited as a legal precedent for the ruling.
The case would be appealed and taken to the Supreme Court. On November 13th, the high court affirmed the lower court decision—determining that racial discrimination on public transportation was unconstitutional. The state petitioned the court to re-assess its decision but was denied on December 17th. Three days later, the Montgomery Bus Boycott ended with King saying, “the year-old protest against city buses is officially called off, and the Negro citizens of Montgomery are urged to return to the buses tomorrow morning on a non-segregated basis.”
