Mary Louise Smith (activist)
Template:Short description Mary Louise Ware (Template:Nee Smith; born 1937) is an African-American civil rights activist. She was arrested in October 1955 at the age of 18 in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give up her seat on the segregated bus system. She is one of several women who were arrested for this offense prior to Rosa Parks that year. Parks was the figure around whom the Montgomery bus boycott was organized, starting December 5, 1955.<ref name="This Day">Template:Cite book</ref>
On February 1, 1956, Smith was one of five women named as plaintiffs in the federal civil suit, Browder v. Gayle, challenging the constitutionality of the state and local bus segregation laws. On June 13, 1956, a three-judge panel of the United States District Court ruled that the laws were unconstitutional. The ruling was upheld by the United States Supreme Court on November 13 in a landmark decision, and in December it declined to reconsider. On December 20, 1956, the Supreme Court ordered Alabama to desegregate its buses and the Montgomery bus boycott ended.
Early life and education
[edit]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.<ref name="Black Catholic Messenger" />
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.<ref name="Ladies Before Rosa">Template:Cite news</ref> She was arrested and fined $12.<ref name="WBHM">Template:Cite news</ref>
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.<ref name="Ladies Before Rosa" /> Additionally, she was considered not the "right class" to be the rallying point for the movement.<ref name="USNWR">Template:Cite news</ref> Smith's father represented her in court, without aid from outside political organizations.<ref name="Black Catholic Messenger" />
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.<ref name="WBHM" />
Browder v. Gayle
[edit]Template:Main 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.)<ref name="Patton">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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
[edit]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.<ref name="Time not going to stand">Template:Cite news</ref>
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. <ref name="dees">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="SPL">Template:Cite news</ref> 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.<ref name="Montgomery Advertiser">Template:Cite news</ref>
Smith is active with her 12 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren.<ref name="Patton Coll">Template:Cite web</ref> She still lives in Montgomery, Alabama, and her older sister lives across the street.<ref name="WBHM" />
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."<ref name="Chicago Tribune">Template:Cite web</ref>
Tributes
[edit]- 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".<ref name="Time">Template:Cite web</ref>
- 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,<ref name="stanford1">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Richmond statue">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> including Mary Louise Smith. Smith also took part in the unveiling ceremony.<ref name="Richmond statue" />
- In 2023, Smith received a historical marker in Montgomery for her own actions.<ref name="Black Catholic Messenger">Template:Cite news</ref>