Susie McDonald was an elderly Black woman who had also been subjected to the indignities of Montgomery’s bus system. Her arrest in October 1955 added another plaintiff whose personal circumstances — older, with a different profile from the teenager Colvin — broadened the case’s human representation.
Mary Louise Smith was eighteen years old when she was arrested on October 21, 1955. She was held for a few hours and then released and fined. Her youth placed her in a similar position to Colvin, but Smith came from a slightly different social situation. She, too, faced the respectability scrutiny that civil rights leaders applied to potential test case plaintiffs; some accounts note that her family’s circumstances — her father reportedly had a drinking problem — were seen as a vulnerability. She remained in the case nonetheless.
Jeanetta Reese had agreed to join the lawsuit, but withdrew in February 1956 after receiving threats against herself and her family. The threats were serious; the white community’s opposition to the boycott and to the federal lawsuit was not confined to legal challenge. Reese subsequently and falsely claimed that she had never agreed to join the suit, which led to an attempt — ultimately unsuccessful — to disbar Fred Gray.
Reese’s withdrawal left four plaintiffs. The case proceeded with Browder, Colvin, McDonald, and Smith.
## Fred Gray and the Legal Team
Fred Gray was twenty-four years old when he filed the lawsuit that became Browder v. Gayle. He had been born in Montgomery, attended segregated schools, trained as a minister and then as a lawyer, and returned to Montgomery specifically with the goal of using the law to challenge segregation. He had promised, in his own account of his intentions, to “destroy everything segregated I could find.”