Susie McDonald

Susie McDonald, also known as Miss Sue, was an African American activist who served as one of the plaintiffs in the bus segregation lawsuit Browder v. Gayle (1956) in Montgomery, Alabama.[1][2] She was arrested for violating bus segregation law on October 21, 1955.[3][2][1][4] She was a widow at the time, in her seventies, walked with a cane, and was light-skinned enough to be mistaken for white by bus operators, though she enjoyed correcting this misconception.[1][5] Her husband Tom had done railroad work, and she received his pension.[1]

In the 1950s the McDonald family were the owners of a pavilion near Cleveland Avenue, known to black people as McDonald's Farm, where they could go without fear of racist violence.[1] It may be, as family lore has it, that the McDonalds were able to buy the land in the 19th century because they were thought to be white.[1]

In 2019 a statue of Rosa Parks was unveiled in Montgomery, Alabama, and four granite markers were also unveiled near the statue on the same day to honor four plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, including Susie McDonald.[6][7][8]

References
  1. Hendrickson, Paul (1998-04-12). "The Ladies Before Rosa". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2018-01-10.
  2. "Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement - Montgomery Bus Boycott Biographic Sketches". Crmvet.org. Retrieved 2018-01-10.
  3. Joyce A. Hanson (6 July 2011). Rosa Parks: A Biography: A Biography. ABC-CLIO. pp. 87–. ISBN 978-0-313-35218-8.
  4. Christopher M. Richardson; Ralph E. Luker (11 June 2014). Historical Dictionary of the Civil Rights Movement. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 499–. ISBN 978-0-8108-8037-5.
  5. Phillip Hoose (21 December 2010). Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice. Square Fish. pp. 95–. ISBN 978-0-312-66105-2.
  6. "Browder v. Gayle, 352 U.S. 903 | The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute". Kinginstitute.stanford.edu. 24 April 2017. Retrieved 2019-12-09.
  7. "Alabama unveils statue of civil rights icon Rosa Parks | Richmond Free Press | Serving the African American Community in Richmond, VA". Richmond Free Press. 2019. Retrieved 2019-12-09.
  8. "Rosa Parks statue unveiled in Alabama on anniversary of her refusal to give up seat". WJLA. December 2019. Retrieved 2019-12-09.


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