Annie Devine - A Quiet Giant of the Civil Rights Movement
Civil Rights Activist
Born: 1912, Mobile, Alabama, U.S.A.
Died: August 22, 2000, Ridgeland, Missouri, U.S.A.
Annie Bell Robinson Devine was a courageous civil rights activist who, after witnessing injustice firsthand, became a powerful voice for Black voting rights and equality.
Born in 1912 in Canton, Mississippi, she grew up in a time when African Americans in the South faced segregation, racism, and unequal treatment. As a young woman, Annie attended Tougaloo College. After college, she became an insurance agent and later worked as a schoolteacher. For much of her life, she lived quietly and followed the rules. But everything changed in the 1960s, when the Civil Rights Movement began gaining strength.
One day, while walking home from work, Annie heard singing coming from a motel owned by local businessman and activist C.O. Chinn. Curious, she noticed police cars circling the building. Wanting to know what was going on, Annie stepped inside and found a meeting hosted by the Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE. This group fought against racism and segregation using peaceful, nonviolent actions.
At the meeting, the speakers talked about voting rights and how most Black people in Mississippi were not allowed to register to vote. At the time, 94% of Black Mississippians were unregistered. In Canton, where Annie lived, there were no Black registered voters, even though Black people made up 75% of the population. In the surrounding county, fewer than 100 out of 10,000 eligible Black residents were registered to vote.
When the meeting ended, Annie was harassed by the police outside the motel. That experience shook her. The next morning, she quit her job and joined CORE full-time. Annie began working to register voters in her community and invited others to join workshops about civil rights.
She soon saw how unfair and broken the system was. Many Black people were turned away at the registrar’s office, even if they met all the requirements. This made Annie more determined to bring change. By 1963, she was running a CORE office in Canton, helping people register and organizing peaceful protests. In 1964, she held “Freedom Day,” a major event meant to protest the registrar’s refusal to register Black voters.
Later that year, Annie joined forces with two other civil rights leaders, Fannie Lou Hamer and Victoria Gray. Together, they started the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), a political group that gave a voice to Black Mississippians who were excluded from the state’s Democratic Party. Annie worked hard to build the party’s support across the state.
In the summer of 1964, the MFDP held a statewide convention in Jackson. Over 2,000 people came. They elected 68 delegates to attend the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Annie was one of those delegates. The MFDP held a vigil to honor three civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner, who had been murdered that summer.
At the Convention, the MFDP tried to replace Mississippi’s all-white delegation and demanded that their voices be heard. Fannie Lou Hamer gave a powerful speech on live television, telling the nation about the violence she had faced just for trying to vote. President Lyndon Johnson was so worried about her message that he called a surprise press conference to take her off the air. In response, the Democratic Party offered the MFDP only two seats at the Convention. Annie and her group refused. Two seats were not enough; they wanted full and fair representation.
Later, Annie returned to Washington, D.C. and became one of the first three Black women to speak on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. She asked Congress to deny a seat to a Mississippi Congressman because Black citizens were still being denied the right to vote. Her request was denied, but it led to investigations that helped create the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Annie continued her work for justice for the rest of her life. She helped start a Head Start program for poor Black children and kept fighting for civil rights. She passed away in 2000 at the age of 88. Though she didn’t always get the spotlight, Annie Devine was a quiet giant who made a big difference.
References:
“Dion Diamond Oral History Interview Conducted by David Cline in Washington, District of Columbia, 2015 December 13.” The Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/2016655423/.
“Dion Diamond: Doing What Is Right.” Deeply Rooted, historyfortomorrow.org/story/dion-diamond-doing-what-is-right/.
Spencer, George. “A Freedom Rider’s Perilous Path.” On Wisconsin, onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/a-freedom-riders-perilous-path/.
Keywords:
Civil Rights, Justice, Courage, Perseverance, Freedom, Responsibility, Challenge Injustices, Stand Up for Your Beliefs
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