I usually try to stay away from focusing on February being “Black History Month.” As far as I’m concerned, black history should be discussed every day and so should all other kinds of histories.

Anyway, as regular readers of this blog know, I am an amateur history buff. I am sometimes tempted to re-enroll in school to get a graduate degree in history. Then I catch myself and remember that I can just as easily go to the library and check out a bunch of books for FREE. So no more school for me…

One of my touchstones in life is Dr. Barbara Ransby. I admire her for many personal reasons and I am in awe of her work as a historian. In particular, Barbara is the person who introduced me to the life and legacy of the great Ella Baker in her book “Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement.” If you’ve never heard of Ella Baker before or even if you have, I can’t recommend this book any more highly. After reading about Mrs. Baker, I became sort of obsessed with learning about other unsung black women who have made a significant contribution to history. It was this search that first led me to a woman named Mae Mallory.

Willie Mae Mallory was born in Georgia in 1927. She moved to New York City with her mother in 1939. Ms. Mallory died in 2007 at the age of 80. In between those years, Mae Mallory played an integral role in the black freedom movement in the U.S. Yet she is far from a household name and even those who know something about black U.S. history may never have heard of her contributions. Yet before there was a FREE ANGELA or FREE ASSATA campaign, there was a FREE MAE MALLORY one.

Mae Mallory fled from North Carolina to Ohio in August 1961 in fear for her life. She was a supporter and friend of black radical Robert F. Williams. Williams, who had fought in World War II, returned home to become the leader of his local North Carolina NAACP chapter in the mid-1950s. By the late 1950s, Williams had won the admiration of many black people through his resistance to racist violence by the KKK in Monroe, North Carolina. He was also vocal about the need for black people in the U.S. to practice armed self-defense. His approach was in stark contrast to Dr. King’s advocacy of nonviolent resistance.

During a trip to New York in 1959, Williams met Mae who was already a local community activist. As the mother of two children, she had filed a lawsuit against the New York Public Schools to demand better accommodations for black children. She had been part of a group that became known as the Harlem Nine. Mallory was so impressed with Williams that she established a group of supporters called Crusader Families to help Williams with his work in North Carolina. The group’s name came from Williams’ newsletter called the Crusader which kept people informed about the events taking place in Monroe, North Carolina.

Peniel E. Joseph provides a great glimpse of Mae Mallory’s activism in his book “Waiting Til' The Midnight Hour.” After the African Nationalist leader Patrice Lumumba was assassinated in 1961, a group of black american artists and activists took over the United Nations. On February 15, 1961, demonstrators protested outside the U.N. while artists like Maya Angelou made their way into the Security Council. He describes the incident as follows:

“From the balcony, the screaming voices of protestors could be heard. “Killers!” shouted one. “Murderers!” yelled another. “Lumumba! Lumumba! they chanted in unison. Adlai Stevenson, two-time Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. representative to the United Nations, stood to address the meeting. Leaning toward the microphone, Stevenson removed his glasses and searched for the source of the rapidly escalating commotion.

At 11:35 in the morning, protesters had entered the Security Council meeting where a melee broke out between security guards and demonstrators. Frantic crowds hustled out in a stampede of departing spectators and incoming security guards. LeRoi Jones and Mae Mallory huddled together and, in an instant, were cordoned off by security. Mallory engaged in a heated struggle that required the intervention of several guards. Police officers snatched Jones into a packed police van, banging his head against the paddy wagon’s metal frame doors while other protestors were dragged outside and charged with disorderly conduct. (pp.40-41).”

This account suggests that Mae Mallory considered the U.S. black freedom struggle as intimately connected to the colonial struggles taking place on the Continent. Only a few months after the U.N. demonstration, Mae Mallory would find herself accused of facilitating a kidnapping and aiding in the escape of Robert F. Williams from the United States.

In August 1961, Mae Mallory along with journalist Julian Mayfield were visiting Rob Williams and his family in Monroe. The summer of ’61 in Monroe had been characterized by racial tumult. It ended with Rob Williams being accused of kidnapping an elderly white couple, Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Stegall. He fled the country to Cuba allegedly with the help of Mallory and Mayfield. Mayfield went to Ghana and Mallory found her way to Cleveland Ohio.

Accused of false kidnapping charges, Mae Mallory along with the other Monroe Defendants would face a stiff prison sentence and years of legal troubles. While in Cleveland, Mallory would fight against being extradited to Monroe to face her charges. Mallory described Monroe as a place “where a black man has never been acquitted when accused of a crime against a whiteman, and a whiteman has never been convicted when accused of a crime against a blackman.” Because of her refusal to return to Monroe, Mallory would spend over a year and a half in jail in Ohio. While she was incarcerated at Cuyahoga County Jail, she wrote letters and shared her thoughts about the experience. Tomorrow, I will post “An Open Letter…To My Many Friends in America and Those in Foreign Lands” in which Mae Mallory describes her life in jail. It is my deepest hope that someone is currently working on a book about Mae Mallory’s life. She deserves much more recognition.