The women behind the case On March 2, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, 15-year-old
Claudette Colvin became the first person to be arrested for her refusal to give up her seat to white patrons boarding the bus. She was arrested on multiple charges as a result of her refusal before she was able to present her case before the U.S. District Court. The following month,
Aurelia Browder became the second person to be arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white patron on April 19, 1955 (note that some online sources, likely incorrectly, give this date as April 29). Six months later, in October 1955,
Mary Louise Smith and
Susie McDonald were arrested for the same offense. Smith was arrested on October 21 and held in jail for two hours before being released and fined. There are conflicting accounts regarding the exact date of McDonald's October arrest.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus on December 1, 1955. After calling her mother from jail, her mom contacted
E.D. Nixon, president of the
NAACP and secretary of the new
Montgomery Improvement Association, who was able to have
Clifford Durr (a white lawyer who, with his wife,
Virginia Durr, was an activist in the
Civil Rights Movement) pay the fine to bring her home. Beginning the following week, the NAACP had volunteers handing out pamphlets to promote a day long bus protest in response to the arrest of Rosa Parks. Shortly after beginning the
Montgomery bus boycott in December 1955,
black community leaders began to discuss filing a federal lawsuit to challenge the City of
Montgomery and
Alabama bus
segregation laws. They sought a declaratory judgment that Alabama state statutes and ordinances of the city of Montgomery providing for and enforcing racial segregation on "privately"-operated buses were in violation of
Fourteenth Amendment protections for equal treatment.
Building the case The cause of action was brought under
Reconstruction-era civil rights legislation, specifically
42 U.S.C. sections 1981, 1983. The
United States District Court had
original jurisdiction to hear the case because it was a federal question (section 1331) and because it concerned civil rights (section 1343). A three-judge district court panel was required under 28 U.S.C. § 2281 for the granting of an interlocutory or the permanent injunction restraining the enforcement of a state statute by restraining the action of a state officer, such as an official of the
Alabama Public Service Commission. The court held that since officials admitted that they were enforcing state statutes, a three-judge court had jurisdiction over the case. About two months after the bus boycott began, civil rights activists reconsidered the case of
Claudette Colvin.
Fred Gray,
E.D. Nixon, and
Clifford Durr searched for the ideal case law to challenge the constitutional legitimacy of Montgomery and Alabama bus segregation laws. Durr was concerned that an appeal of Parks's case would get tied up in the Alabama state courts and thought that they needed a way to get directly to federal courts.
Gray did research for the lawsuit and consulted with
NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys
Robert L. Carter and
Thurgood Marshall who ultimately helped them decide to approach
Claudette Colvin,
Aurelia Browder,
Susie McDonald,
Mary Louise Smith, and
Jeanetta Reese, all women who had been discriminated against by drivers enforcing segregation policy in the Montgomery bus system. They agreed to become plaintiffs in a federal civil action lawsuit, thus bypassing the Alabama court system. Reese dropped out of the case in February 1956 because of intimidation by members of the white community. Furthermore,
Fred Gray also attempted to interview men to join the case, however they were too fearful to spearhead the fight. ==Decision==