[3] Their attorney, Fred Gray, also approached Jeanetta Reese to join the suit, but intimidation by segregationists (including threatening phone calls and pressure from a senior police officer for whom she worked) caused her to withdraw.
[4] On June 5, 1956, the District Court ruled 2–1, with Lynne dissenting, that bus segregation is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S.
[5] On March 2nd, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, 15 year old Claudette Colvin became the first person to be arrested for their refusal to give up her seat for White patrons boarding the bus.
Months later on October 21st, 1955 Mary Louise Smith became the second person to join the protest, and after refusing to give up her seat was arrested and held in jail for two hours before being released and fined.
Beginning the following week, the NAACP had volunteers handing out pamphlets to promote a day long bus protest in response to the arrest of Rosa Parks.
They sought a declaratory judgment that Alabama state statutes and ordinances of the city of Montgomery providing for and enforcing racial segregation on "privately"-operated buses were in violation of Fourteenth Amendment protections for equal treatment.
Gray did research for the lawsuit and consulted with NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys Robert L. Carter and Thurgood Marshall who ultimately helped them decide to approach Claudette Colvin, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, Mary Louise Smith, and Jeanetta Reese, all women who had been discriminated against by drivers enforcing segregation policy in the Montgomery bus system.
[7] On February 1, 1956, Gray filed the case Browder v. Gayle in U.S. District Court which would charge the defendants W. A. Gayle (mayor of Montgomery), city commissioners Clyde Sellers and Frank Parks, Goodwyn Ruppenthal (the Chief of police), The Montgomery City Lines, Inc., and members of the Alabama Public Service Commission.
[1] On June 5, 1956, the District Court ruled that "the enforced segregation of black and white passengers on motor buses operating in the City of Montgomery violates the Constitution and laws of the United States" because the conditions deprived people of equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.