Mae Mallory was a Black liberation movement leader in the 1960s, and proponent of Black armed self-defense.

Life

She was raised in Macon, Georgia

Macon, Georgia

Macon is a city located in central Georgia, US. Founded at the fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is part of the Macon metropolitan area, and the county seat of Bibb County. A small portion of the city extends into Jones County. Macon is the biggest city in central Georgia...

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She was active improving public schools in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, in 1958 suing the school district over school zoning laws.

She supported Robert F. Williams

Robert F. Williams

Robert Franklin Williams was a civil rights leader, the president of the Monroe, North Carolina NAACP chapter in the 1950s and early 1960s, and author. At a time when racial tension was high and official abuses were rampant, Williams was a key figure in promoting both integration and armed black...

, NAACP member, and author of Negroes with Guns, in Monroe, North Carolina

Monroe, North Carolina

Monroe is a city in Union County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 36,397 as of the 2010 census. It is the seat of government of Union County and is also part of the Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill, NC-SC Metropolitan area.-Geography:...

. She went to Ohio, and was supported by the Monroe Defense Committee, and the Workers World Party

Workers World Party

Workers World Party is a far-left political party in the United States, founded in 1959 by a group led by Sam Marcy. Marcy and his followers split from the Socialist Workers Party in 1958 over a series of long-standing differences, among them Marcy's group's support for Henry A...

, in her extradition and kidnapping trial. In 1961-5, she was jailed for kidnapping, but was later released after the North Carolina Supreme Court determined racial discrimination in the jury selection.
COINTELPRO

COINTELPRO

COINTELPRO was a series of covert, and often illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.COINTELPRO tactics included discrediting targets through psychological...

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

She mentored Yuri Kochiyama

Yuri Kochiyama

Yuri Kochiyama is a Japanese American human rights activist.Kochiyama was born Mary Yuriko Nakahara in San Pedro, California. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Kochiyama's father was imprisoned the same day...

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She was a friend of Madalyn Murray O'Hair

Madalyn Murray O'Hair

Madalyn Murray O'Hair was an American atheist activist and founder of the organization American Atheists and its president from 1963 to 1986. One of her sons, Jon Garth Murray, was the president of the organization from 1986 to 1995, while she remained de facto president during these nine years....

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On Feb. 21, 1965, she was present at the assassination of Malcolm X

Malcolm X

Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...

 at the Audubon Ballroom

Audubon Ballroom

The Audubon Ballroom was a theatre and ballroom located on Broadway at 165th Street in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, north of Harlem in New York. It is best known as the site of Malcolm X's assassination on February 21, 1965....

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In April 1965, she was instrumental in a Times Square

Times Square

Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...

 protest against the 1965 United States occupation of the Dominican Republic.
On Aug. 8, 1966, she spoke at an anti-Vietnam War rally.

She was an organizer of the Sixth Pan-African Congress

Pan-African Congress

The Pan-African Congress was a series of five meetings in 1919, 1921, 1923, 1927, and 1945 that were intended to address the issues facing Africa due to European colonization of much of the continent....

 held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 1974. In 1974, she lived in Mwanza, Tanzania

Tanzania

The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...

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Her papers are held at Wayne State University

Wayne State University

Wayne State University is a public research university located in Detroit, Michigan, United States, in the city's Midtown Cultural Center Historic District. Founded in 1868, WSU consists of 13 schools and colleges offering more than 400 major subject areas to over 32,000 graduate and...

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