Mary Louise Smith (activist)

Early life and education

Mary Louise Smith was born in Montgomery, Alabama into a Catholic family. She and all her siblings attended and graduated from St. Jude Educational Institute. She was baptized at St. Jude's Church, where she was a parishioner.

At the age of 18, on October 21, 1955, Smith was returning home on the Montgomery city bus, and was ordered to relinquish her seat to a white passenger who had boarded later. She refused to do so and was arrested. She was charged with failure to obey segregation orders, some 40 days before the arrest of Rosa Parks on similar charges. She was arrested and fined $12.

Activist E. D. Nixon, leading some of the bus boycott movement, shared information that Smith's father was an alcoholic, and she was not the right symbol to withstand the publicity. The family and neighbors dispute this characterization. Additionally, she was considered not the "right class" to be the rallying point for the movement. Smith's father represented her in court, without aid from outside political organizations.

Attorney Fred Gray recruited Smith and her father to become plaintiffs in a federal civil rights class-action lawsuit to end segregated seating on city buses.

''Browder v. Gayle''

Main article: Browder v. Gayle

On February 1, 1956, Gray and other attorneys filed a civil suit, Browder v. Gayle in the United States District Court, challenging state and local laws on bus segregation. Smith was one of five plaintiffs, including Aurelia Browder, Claudette Colvin, Susie McDonald, and Jeanetta Reese. (Reese left the case that month because of intimidation.) The women, other than Reese, testified before a three-judge panel, and on June 13, 1956, the court ruled that the laws were unconstitutional, based on equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Appealed by the city and state, the case made its way to the United States Supreme Court. On November 13, 1956, it affirmed the lower court's ruling. On December 17, it declined an appeal by the city and state to reconsider, and on December 20 ordered the state to desegregate its buses. This ended the Montgomery bus boycott with success.

Later years

Little information is available about her personal life. She married Mr. Ware and they had children together.

Smith followed the civil rights movement, but were not actively part of the political organization. She did attend the 1963 March on Washington.

In 1969, Smith and her sister allowed their sons to become plaintiffs in a racial discrimination lawsuit against the Montgomery YMCA. Lawyer Morris Dees represented their suit, which called out the YMCA for not allowing her and her sister's children into their summer camp program. In 1972, the U.S. District court ruled in their favor and ended segregation at the YMCA as well as voided remaining segregation ordinances in the city.

Smith is active with her 12 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren. She still lives in Montgomery, Alabama, and her older sister lives across the street.

When Rosa Parks died in October 2005, Smith Ware, then 68, attended the memorial service in Montgomery. "I had to pay my tribute to her, [s]he was our role model."

Tributes

• Rita Dove, a United States poet laureate, mentions Mary Louise Smith in her poem "The Enactment", in her collection, On the Bus with Rosa Parks (1999). She also referred to the then-young activist in her magazine article "The Torchbearer Rosa Parks".

• In 2019 a statue of Rosa Parks was unveiled in Montgomery, Alabama, and four granite markers were also unveiled near the statue on the same day to honor four plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, including Mary Louise Smith. Smith also took part in the unveiling ceremony.

• In 2023, Smith received a historical marker in Montgomery for her own actions.

References

References

1. Horace Randall Williams. (2009). "his Day in Civil Rights History". NewSouth Books.
2. (April 12, 1998). "The Ladies Before Rosa". Washington Post.
3. (December 10, 2015). "Plaintiff in Landmark Civil Rights Montgomery Bus Case Shares Her Story". WBHM NPR Alabama.
4. (December 11, 1995). ""I'm not going to ride the bus."". U.S. News & World Report.
5. Dr. Gwen Patton. "Montgomery Bus Boycott — Biographic Sketches".
6. (September 1938). "Aurelia S. Browder et al. v. W. A. Gayle et al., No. 1147". National Archives.
7. (March 2, 2020). "'I Was Not Going to Stand.' Rosa Parks Predecessors Recall Their History-Making Acts of Resistance". Time.
8. Dees, Morris. (2001). "A Lawyer's Journey: The Morris Dees Story". American Bar Association Publications.
9. "Smith v. Young Men's Christian Association". Southern Poverty Law Center.
10. (May 22, 2023). "Montgomery honors Smith family for their role in ending segregation". Montgomery Advertiser.
11. "Montgomery Bus Boycott — Biographic Sketches".
12. "Other heroes of bus boycott".
13. "The Torchbearer".
14. (24 April 2017). "Browder v. Gayle, 352 U.S. 903 | The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute". Kinginstitute.stanford.edu.
15. (2019). "Alabama unveils statue of civil rights icon Rosa Parks | Richmond Free Press | Serving the African American Community in Richmond, VA". Richmond Free Press.
16. (December 2019). "Rosa Parks statue unveiled in Alabama on anniversary of her refusal to give up seat". WJLA.
17. (May 12, 2023). "Black Catholic civil rights activist Mary Louise Smith, predecessor of Rosa Parks, to receive historical marker in Montgomery". Black Catholic Messenger.