Mae Mallory (June 9, 1927 – 2007) was an activist of the

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...

and a Black Power movement leader active in the 1950s and 1960s. She is best known as an advocate of school desegregationMelissa F. Weiner
''Power, Protest, and the Public Schools: Jewish and African American Struggles in New York City''
(Rutgers University Press, 2010) pp. 51-66. and of

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ...

armed self-defense.Jeanette Merrill and Rosemary Neidenberg
"Mae Mallory: unforgettable freedom fighter promoted self-defense"
''Workers World'', February 26, 2009.

Life

Mallory was born in Macon, Georgia, on June 9, 1927. She later went to live in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

with her mother in 1939. In 1956, Mallory was a founder and spokesperson of the "Harlem 9", a group of African-American mothers who protested the inferior and inadequate conditions in segregated New York City schools. Inspired by a report by

Kenneth and Mamie Clark Kenneth Bancroft Clark (July 24, 1914 – May 1, 2005) and Mamie Phipps Clark (April 18, 1917 – August 11, 1983) were American psychologists who as a married team conducted research among children and were active in the Civil Rights Movement. Th ...

on inexperienced teachers, overcrowded classrooms, dilapidated conditions, and

gerrymandering In representative democracies, gerrymandering (, originally ) is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. The m ...

to promote segregation in New York, the group sought to transfer their children to integrated schools that offered higher quality resources. "Harlem 9" activism included lawsuits against the city and state, filed with the help of the

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. ...

(NAACP). By 1958 it escalated to public protests and a 162-day boycott involving 10,000 parents. The boycott campaign did not win formal support from the NAACP, but was assisted by leaders such as

Ella Baker Ella Josephine Baker (December 13, 1903 – December 13, 1986) was an African-American civil rights and human rights activist. She was a largely behind-the-scenes organizer whose career spanned more than five decades. In New York City and t ...

and Adam Clayton Powell, and endorsed by African-American newspapers such as the '' Amsterdam News''. While the children were engaged in another boycott in 1960, the campaign established some of the first Freedom Schools of the civil rights movement to educate them. New York City retaliated against the mothers, trying and failing to prosecute them for negligence. In 1960, Mallory and the Harlem 9 won their lawsuit, and the Board of Education allowed them, and over a thousand other parents, to transfer their children to integrated schools. That year, the Board of Education announced a general policy of Open Enrollment, and thousands more black children transferred to integrated schools over the next five years. (Overall integration in the city was thwarted, however, by the practice of

white flight White flight or white exodus is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the United States. They refer ...

.) She supported Robert F. Williams, the Monroe, North Carolina NAACP chapter leader, and author o
''Negroes with Guns''
During the

Freedom Rides Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions '' Morgan v. Virginia ...

in August 1961, she worked with Williams in protecting Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) activists who were demonstrating in Monroe. This led to armed confrontations with white supremacists and allegations of kidnapping a white couple. She went to

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, and was supported by the Monroe Defense Committee, and the

Workers World Party The Workers World Party (WWP) is a revolutionary Marxist–Leninist communist party founded in 1959 by a group led by Sam Marcy of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Marcy and his followers split from the SWP in 1958 over a series of long-sta ...

, in her extradition and kidnapping trial. In 1961–65, she was jailed for kidnapping, but was later released after the

North Carolina Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the State of North Carolina is the state of North Carolina's highest appellate court. Until the creation of the North Carolina Court of Appeals in the 1960s, it was the state's only appellate court. The Supreme Court consists ...

determined racial discrimination in the jury selection.

COINTELPRO COINTELPRO (syllabic abbreviation derived from Counterintelligence, Counter Intelligence Program; 1956–1971) was a series of Covert operation, covert and illegal projects actively conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation ( ...

tried to break up the support group Committee to Support the Monroe Defendants. She mentored

Yuri Kochiyama was an American civil rights activist. Influenced by her Japanese-American family's experience in an American internment camp, her association with Malcolm X, and her Maoist beliefs, she advocated for many causes, including black separatism, ...

. She was a friend of Madalyn Murray O'Hair. On February 21, 1965, Mallory was present at the assassination of

Malcolm X Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of I ...

at the Audubon Ballroom. In April 1965, she was instrumental in a

Times Square Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent ...

protest against the

1965 United States occupation of the Dominican Republic The Dominican Civil War (), also known as the April Revolution (), took place between April 24, 1965, and September 3, 1965, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. It started when civilian and military supporters of the overthrown democraticall ...

. On August 8, 1966, she spoke at an anti-Vietnam War rally. She was an organizer of the Sixth Pan-African Congress held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1974. In 1974, she lived in Mwanza,

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...

. Her papers are held at the Walter P. Reuther Library at

Wayne State University Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...

Works

* ''Letters from Prison'', Mae Mallory. Monroe Defense Committee, c. 1962. * Paula Marie Seniors, "Mae Mallory, The Monroe Defense Committee, and World Revolutions: "African American Women Radical Activists (1958-1987)," The University of Georgia Press, Forthcoming * Paula Marie Seniors, "Mae Mallory and "The Southern Belle Fantasy Trope" at The Cuyahoga County Jail 21st and Payne PAIN," From Uncle Tom's Cabin to The Help: Critical Perspectives on White-Authored Narratives of Black Life, Claire Garcia, Vershawn Young, editors, Palgrave Macmillan, August 2014. * A. T. Simpson, "After one year of hell Mae Mallory is still a champion", Workers World, October 26, 1962.Note for the references: A.T. Simpson was an alias for Clarence H. Seniors, Chairman of Cleveland's Monroe Defense Committee

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mallory, Mae 2007 deaths 1929 births American civil rights activists American Marxists COINTELPRO targets American community activists