October 6, 1914 Birth of women’s rights advocate Mary Louise Smith, elected Chair of the Republican National Committee in 1974
She is famous as one of the pre-Rosa Parks women who refused to give up their seat in the "whites only" section of Montgomery, Alabama city buses. She was just 18 years old when she was arrested. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, Smith has lived there since her birth. At the age of 18, October 21, 1955, Mary returning home on the Montgomery, Alabama city line bus, was ordered to relinquish her seat to a white female passenger, which she refused to do. Her stand landed her in jail and she was charged with failure to obey segregation orders, some 40 days before the arrest of Rosa Parks on similar charges. Her father bailed her from jail and paid her fine, nine dollars. The incident was unknown except to family and neighbors. Her arrest was made known later at a mass meeting by a cousin. Attorney Fred Gray asked Smith and her father for her to become a plaintiff in a civil rights class action law suit to end segregated seating on city buses. Her father agreed, because he wanted justice for her unlawful arrest. Mary did not learn until 1995, from a reporter that she had been discussed as being a test case by black leaders. The reporter told her she was not chosen because it was said her father was an alcoholic. This untrue allegation bothers her more than the exclusion and ignoring of her contributions by Montgomery and national black leaders for over 50 years. When Rosa Parks died in October 2005, Mary, then 68, attended the memorial service for Parks in Montgomery, where she still lives. "I had to pay my tribute to her," Ware said. "She was our role model." Mary continued to work for civil rights beyond the boycott and trial. She worked on voting rights campaigns and attended the March on Washington in 1963. Her sister Annie's son was a plaintiff in the lawsuit to desegregate the Y.M.C.A. If she had been chosen to be a test case instead of Rosa Parks, I wonder if history would remember she was a Republican.
No comments:
Post a Comment