#mae mallory

“She was an activist of the Civil Rights Movement and a Black Power movement leader active in the 1950s and 1960s. She is best known as an advocate of school desegregation and of black armed self-defense. In 1956, Mallory became 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. She was arrested by the FBI in 1962 for kidnapping and tried for her crimes by an all-white jury who sentenced her to 16-20 years in prison. Eventually, in 1965, Mallory's guilty verdict was overturned after a judge said that having an all-white jury on her case was unlawful.”

[Mae Mallory and her daughter]

A Civil Rights and Black Power leader, Mae Mallory (1927-2007) was an advocate for Black self-defense and desegregation.

Born in Macon, Georgia and raised in New York City, Mallory believed in self-determination and self-empowerment. In 1957, she filed a suit against the New York City Board of Education, alleging that her children still want to de facto segregated schools despite the Brown decision three years previous. She was joined by eight other mothers, and the so-called Harlem Nine won the right to transfer their children.

In the 1960s, after supporting the Freedom Riders, Mallory was confronted with White supremacists and unfairly targeted by the police. She was arrested in Cleveland and held at the Cuyahoga County Jail, where she gave an interview. In this interview, she argued that capitalism made enemies of working-class White and Black Americans who ought to have been compatriots, criticism Black liberal leaders as being too moderate, and argued for the necessity of Black self-defense.

Welcome To Black Mail! Where we bring you Black History, Special Delivery. Willie “Mae” Mallory (1927 – 2007) was the founder of and spokesperson for the Harlem Nine. The group of nine Black mothers sought to challenge the New York City Board of Education on the poor conditions of Black schools. Mallory took action after her children, Patricia and Keefer, Jr., informed her of the deplorable…

By Greg Butterfield

Rosemary Neidenberg died in Brooklyn, N.Y., on March 29 at the age of 99. For almost a century, her commitment to the revolutionary liberation of humanity never faltered.

A conversation with Che Guevara

An article written by founding Workers World editor Vince Copeland shortly after Che Guevara's death 50 years ago, recalling an historic meeting of U.S. activists with the great revolutionary:

The night before Che Guevara left the United States for the last time, he met with a little band of progressive writers and supporters of Cuba. And he talked until past midnight about guerrilla fighters and the world revolution. Now, according to his enemies, he is dead. If so, the revolution has lost a great leader, as even the counter-revolution, for its own reasons, is quick to admit. We who met with him on the night of December 16, 1964, did not have the opportunity to serve with him in guerrilla battles or in political struggles. But we saw him in a rare moment of relaxation – a socialist man in a capitalist world, conversing with comrades and sympathizers about the struggle and about its demands on the individual.

Sitting on the floor in the parlor of the Cuban Mission to the United Nations on 63rd Street in New York, he spoke to the eight or nine of us about Black Freedom in the U.S., problems of production in Cuba, liberation of Puerto Rico and the U.S. blockade of his country.

Mae Mallory, an often ignored militant activist

By Herb Boyd, Amsterdam News

Whether in Africa, Cleveland, New York City, or North Carolina, Mae Mallory sought a way to apply her revolutionary vision and commitment. She was living in New York City when she answered a call from Robert Williams and his wife, Mabel, to join them in the fight against racism and segregation, something she had been doing for years in the North, even advocating armed self-defense. ...

It was Mallory’s call from jail to the Workers World Party that led to the creation of the Monroe Defense Committee. From the Harlem office, members of the party were totally committed to the struggle to free Mallory and the others, including massive rallies, fundraising activities and generally building a promotional campaign that reached national proportions.

After her victory, according to Workers World, Mallory addressed thousands of people across the nation, advocating the armed defense proposed by Robert Williams, which was further promoted by his book “Negroes with Guns.” Not much has been said or written about Mallory’s witnessing the assassination of Malcolm X. During a speech later in Buffalo, N.Y., she reportedly said, “A Black hand pulled the trigger, but it had a white brain behind it.”

Mae Mallory (June 9, 1927 – 2007) Mae Mallory was a civil rights activist known for her support of armed self-defense and school integration. Most of all, She was the founder of the “Harlem 9,” a group of nine Black mothers formed to protest the inferior conditions of schools in New York City during the 1950’s. More importantly, Mallory argued that despite the ruling of Brown vs. Board of…

Mae Mallory the Civil Rights Activist

On June 9, 1927 in Macon, Georgia–Willie Mae Mallory was born. When she was a teenager, in 1939 she and her mother moved to New York City. In Harlem, among constellations of black, progressive, and radical organizations, she grew up. During this time in the early 1950s, she joined several grassroots black nationalist organizations in the civil rights movement. In 1957, Mallory filed a suit…