On this day in 1955, African-American Mary Louise Smith refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery Alabama. She was eighteen years old at the time. Smith was one of several young women whose cases, along with Rosa Parks’, helped spark the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Smith acted initially on her own but later became a plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle that challenged the constitutionality of Alabama bus segregation laws.
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