Dr. Mae Coates King was born in Lee County, Arkansas, to a farmer and preacher father and a housewife mother. It was her grandfather, Robert, who piqued her interest in Africa that would shape her career. In March 1960, Mae C. King went to jail. As a twenty-one-year-old student at Bishop College, an HBCU, and Chairman of the local chapter of the National Student Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), she was at the forefront of student challenges to racial discrimination in local community of Marshall, Texas. There, she helped to lead sit-ins and other forms of direct action after being trained in nonviolent tactics by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. This commitment to justice and equality was met with violent repression from law enforcement and she, along with hundreds of other student protestors, were arrested, jailed, and put on trial. Undeterred, King continued to struggle against structural racism and to...

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