McDonald was elderly — described in various accounts as in her advanced years — and her participation represented a different dimension of the community that Montgomery’s bus segregation had harmed. Her willingness to testify and to remain in the case through the litigation that followed speaks to a determination that is worth recognizing.
Smith was the youngest of the remaining plaintiffs, closest in age to Colvin. Her October 1955 arrest and her participation in the federal case put her in the same position as Colvin: a young woman from a limited background who had been subjected to the segregation system and who agreed to put her name on the challenge to it.
The 2019 granite markers for all four plaintiffs are a recognition of a story that is wider than any single name. The constitutional ruling that ended bus segregation in Montgomery came because four women were willing to be plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit, and because Fred Gray and his colleagues were willing to take on the legal challenge at a time when doing so carried significant personal risk.
## The 381 Days and What They Cost
The Montgomery bus boycott lasted 381 days, from December 5, 1955, when it began, to December 20, 1956, when the Supreme Court’s ruling took effect and Black Montgomerians returned to the buses.
The cost of those 381 days was carried by the people who participated. They walked, arranged carpools, and absorbed economic pressure. Martin Luther King Jr.’s house was bombed. Leaders were arrested and prosecuted. White employers threatened workers. The community held together anyway.