Mary Louise Smith boarded a Montgomery city bus in 1955, unaware police would be escorting her off a few stops later!
Smith was riding along, minding her business, when white passengers demanded she give up her seat. Looking them dead in the eye, Smith refused.
Smith was arrested and fined two months before Rosa Parks refused her seat. Civil Rights leaders considered making Smith the face of the movement, but her youth and rumors of her father’s alcoholism made them pass her up.
Her arrest and protest were kept quiet but Smith wouldn’t be silenced.
Even though Parks became the face of the movement, Smith was still out in these streets. She successfully worked with her community to desegregate the Montgomery YMCA, participated in the March on Washington and with MLK from Selma to Montgomery in Bloody Sunday.
But when Parks died, Smith delivered this message at her funeral.
PRIDE. Smith was proud of the work she, Parks, Claudette Colvin, and thousands of others contributed to the movement. Nothing could have stopped Smith from attending Parks’ funeral — she stated, “I had to pay [my] tribute to her. She was our role model.”
Like Smith, let’s not let petty debates about “credit” get in the way of the big picture — liberation!