Browder v. Gayle
About two months after the Montgomery Bus Boycott began, civil rights activists reconsidered the case of Claudette Colvin. She was a 15-year-old girl who had been the first person arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Black leaders had been looking for a test case to test the constitutionality of the segregation laws of the state of Alabama and the city of Montgomery. One of the attorneys, Clifford Durr, was concerned that an appeal of Mrs. Rosa Parks' case would get tied up in the Alabama state courts. They needed a way to get directly to the federal courts. Colvin and several others who were discriminated against on Montgomery busses, agreed to become plaintiffs in a federal civil action lawsuit, thus bypassing the Alabama court system. The bus company said segregation was valid on "privately owned busses" which operated according to the laws of the city and state.