Mildred McAdory

Mildred McAdory
McAdory in 1968
Born(1915-06-23)June 23, 1915
Homewood, Alabama, US
DiedNovember 1988(1988-11-00) (aged 73)
Other namesMildred McAdory Edelman
OccupationsOrganizer, community leader, activist
Political partyCommunist Party USA
Other political
affiliations		People's Party

Mildred McAdory (sometimes Mildred McAdory Edelman; June 23, 1915 – November 1988) was an American community organizer and civil rights activist.

Originally a domestic worker in Alabama, McAdory was an organizer for the Communist Party USA and the Southern Negro Youth Congress. Her activism was inhibited, such as in 1942, when she was arrested for interfering with a sign denoting the colored section on a bus in Fairfield. She later moved to New York City, where she worked as a reporter and labor organizer. She unsuccessfully ran for both the New York State Assembly and the United States Senate.

Early life

McAdory was born on June 23, 1915, in Homewood, Alabama.[1][2] She was one of three children born to Crittle McAdory (died March 1943)[3] and Irving McAdory (died 1936),[4] the latter a market gardener and miner. Despite being the only black miner in his community, he was respected; he represented two fellow miners in court c. 1920, and also signed checks for the men, as they were illiterate. McAdory began attending school at age five. Her mother lied, stating she was seven years old, for her to be allowed to attend. In an interview, McAdory said that she began to develop her beliefs after witnessing a white superintendent call a black teacher by her first name, a sign of disrespect.[5] She attended a private high school, which her father funded the tuition of. In high school, she played for the basketball and track and field teams. During the Great Depression, McAdory's family established a small farm.[6]

Following high school, McAdory became a domestic worker, due to a lack of other jobs available. She later attended a private college in Alabama. On August 11, 1932, she married Samuel Steele; they had one child, Stephen (died May 1951).[7] They divorced in 1942.[4] She later married Joe Edelman.[8]

Career

Early career

McAdory was recruited to the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC) by Esther Cooper Jackson and Dorothy Burnham.[9] McAdory first worked for the SNYC as a clerk, and in 1939, became a staffer and served as director the SNYC's Fairfield Recreational Youth Center, a center which hosted classes and activities. As director, she helped increase its membership to 300 and its participance to 1,500.[10] On August 10, 1940, she attempted to vote in an election. Despite passing the voter requirements, her vote was voided, and on July 30, 1942, Arthur Shores filed a lawsuit on her behalf to the circuit court, seeking $5,000 in damages and an injunction.[11] The jury ruled against her.[12]

Arrest

On December 12, 1942, McAdory boarded a bus travelling from Fairfield to Birmingham.[9][13] She sat in the full colored section, which was signified by both a removable wooden board and a line on the roof of the bus.[14] A second board stood, in the colored section, two rows behind the first one. Two men boarded the bus and sat in the row ahead of McAdory, sitting atop the wooden booard, which at some point had been removed.[15][16]

The bus driver ordered the men to move behind the board and called the police after the men declined.[15] The police ordered the four to exit the bus and enter the police car, which McAdory refused. Police threatened to beat her when she asked what she was being charged with. They left without taking McAdory. Afterward, she and another black man willingly exited the bus, after which the bus driver kicked her in the back while she was exiting and yelled to the police to arrest her also, which they did.[15]

During questioning, McAdory claimed to not know who moved the board. While being processed, an officer kicked her in the back, slapped her in the face, punched her in the shoulder, and hit her on the hip with a baton.[15] McAdory was then brought to a holding cell occupied by five other women. In an interview, she described the cell being swarmed with cockroaches, and her mattress being as "hard and dirty". She did not receive a phone call or bail. According to McAdory, the police officer who arrested her and bus driver gave false testimonies during the trial.[14] She later said she should have shown the bruises underneath her skirt, despite objection from her attorney, again Arthur Shores. She was fined $10.[17] She appealed the case, and in March 1944, was not awarded damages for the incident.[18]

The story of McAdory's arrest was published in For Common Courtesy on Common Carriers, an SNYC pamphlet.[19] It also spawned the creation of the short-lived Citizens Committee for Equal Accommodations on Common Carriers, which advocated for racial equality on public transport.[20][21] She and James E. Jackson organized a boycott on Birmingham's buses for a short time.[9] She spoke about the incident at events across Alabama; at one, in 1943, at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, she met a young Martin Luther King Jr..[22]

Later career and death

In the third quarter of 1944, McAdory moved to New York City to work as a switchboard operator for the Daily Worker, later becoming a reporter. She suggested the paper simplify the wording of its articles after learning some of its readers did not know the reasons as to the arrest of politician Benjamin J. Davis Jr.; she was fired for making the suggestion. After departing from the paper, she became an organizer for the United Furniture Workers of America, a trade union, and for the Communist Party USA (CPUSA).[23] As a member of the CPUSA, she spoke at multiple of its events, including the 1947 national convention.[3] For some time, she headed the United Harlem Tenants and Consumers Organization, a housing rights organization. In 1949, she worked as a switchboard operator for the headquarters of the New York County Communist Party.[24]

In the 1960s, McAdory served as chairwoman of the Harlem Communist Party.[25][26] Due to her communist activities, she was surveiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, beginning in the early 1940s.[23]

In 1960, McAdory and Arnold Johnson ran for the New York State Assembly in the 13th district; McAdory ran on a dual ticket of the CPUSA and the People's Party.[27] During a campaign event on August 23, police attacked her husband[28] after he criticized hecklers. As they left the event, a group of 150 surrounded her vehicle to block attackers.[8] She and Johnson were later removed from the ballot due to not having filed as part of a communist-action organization, a violation of the McCarran Internal Security Act.[29] On June 3, 1963, she appeared before the Subversive Activities Control Board due to her violations of the McCarran Act.[30] The Daily World claimed McAdory and other communists faced prison sentences because of this.[31] Their removal was challenged by four Democrats in a complaint to the New York State Board of Elections.[32] In 1974, she unsuccessfully ran for the United States Senate with the CPUSA.[33]

In 1968, McAdory worked at the Benjamin J. Davis Bookstore, in New York City.[34] She died in November 1988, aged 73.[33]

References

  1. ^ Winters 2018, p. 8, 10
  2. ^ Gellman, Erik S. (February 1, 2012). Death Blow to Jim Crow: The National Negro Congress and the Rise of Militant Civil Rights. Univ of North Carolina Press. p. 192. ISBN 978-0-8078-6993-2.
  3. ^ a b Winters 2018, pp. 41–43
  4. ^ a b Winters 2018, pp. 22
  5. ^ Winters 2018, pp. 8, 10
  6. ^ Winters 2018, pp. 17, 18
  7. ^ Winters 2018, p. 47
  8. ^ a b "Open Air Rally Weathers Hoodlums and Cops". Daily World. August 28, 1960. p. 3. Retrieved November 26, 2025.
  9. ^ a b c Lieberman, R.; Lang, C. (April 27, 2009). Anticommunism and the African American Freedom Movement: Another Side of the Story. Springer. p. 86. ISBN 978-0-230-62074-2.
  10. ^ Winters 2018, p. 30
  11. ^ "Vote Suit Seeks $5,000 Damanges and Injunction". Jackson Advocate. August 29, 1942. p. 1.
  12. ^ Winters 2018, pp. 28–30
  13. ^ Hine, Darlene Clark (2005). Black Women in America. Oxford University Press. p. 240. ISBN 978-0-19-515677-5.
  14. ^ a b "Miss Mildred McAdory First Insulted by Bus Driver, Then Arrested". The Call. December 25, 1942. p. 20. Retrieved November 26, 2025.
  15. ^ a b c d "Youth Leader Jailed, Beaten in Alabama". Jackson Advocate. December 19, 1942. p. 6.
  16. ^ Mingo, AnneMarie (October 15, 2021). "Black and Blue: Black Women, 'Law and Order,' and the Church's Silence on Police Violence". Religions. 12 (10): 886. doi:10.3390/rel12100886. ISSN 2077-1444.
  17. ^ Winters 2018, pp. 34–38
  18. ^ "Worker Loses Arrest Case By Jury Decision". Michigan Chronicle. March 25, 1944. p. 8. Retrieved November 26, 2025.
  19. ^ McWhorter, Diane (June 29, 2001). Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution. Simon and Schuster. p. 91. ISBN 978-0-7432-2648-6.
  20. ^ Kelley, Robin D. G. (June 1, 1996). Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, And The Black Working Class. Simon and Schuster. p. 109. ISBN 978-1-4391-0504-7.
  21. ^ Lewis, David Levering; Nash, Michael H.; Leab, Daniel J. (September 13, 2013). Red Activists and Black Freedom: James and Esther Jackson and the Long Civil Rights Revolution. Routledge. p. 21. ISBN 978-1-317-99059-8.
  22. ^ Winters 2018, pp. 38, 39
  23. ^ a b Winters 2018, pp. 13, 24
  24. ^ Winters 2018, pp. 44, 45
  25. ^ "U.S. Communist Party Executive Sees Kennedy Victory". The Globe and Mail. August 30, 1960. p. 3. Retrieved February 5, 2026.
  26. ^ "N.Y. Communists Hold Mayoral Rally Today". Daily World. September 13, 1969. p. 10. Retrieved February 5, 2026.
  27. ^ Judiciary, United States Congress Senate Committee on the (1961). Communist Infiltration in the Nuclear Test Ban Movement. U.S. Government Printing Office.
  28. ^ Seniors, Paula Marie (April 2024). Mae Mallory, the Monroe Defense Committee, and World Revolutions: African American Women Radical Activists. University of Georgia Press. p. 113. ISBN 978-0-8203-6644-9.
  29. ^ Board, United States Subversive Activities Control (1966). Reports of the Subversive Activities Control Board. U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 70, 73.
  30. ^ "Hearings Open Monday Here on McCarran Cases". Daily World. June 3, 1963. p. 3. Retrieved February 5, 2026.
  31. ^ Flynn, Elizabeth Gurley (August 25, 1963). "Communists Were Pioneers". Daily World. p. 7. Retrieved February 5, 2026.
  32. ^ "People's Rights Slate Fights Ballot Trickery". Daily World. October 2, 1960. p. 12. Retrieved November 26, 2025.
  33. ^ a b Winters 2018, pp. 48, 49
  34. ^ "A Living Tribune to Ben Davis". Daily World. February 18, 1968. p. 15. Retrieved February 5, 2026.

Sources

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.