Remembering Amelia Isadora Platts Boynton Robinson born on August 18, 1911 who was an activist and a leader of the Civil Rights Movement in Selma, Alabama. A key figure in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches, Amelia was beaten unconscious; a photograph of her lying on Edmund Pettus Bridge went around the world.
Platts taught in Georgia before starting with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Selma as the home demonstration agent for Dallas County. She educated the county’s largely rural population about food production and processing, nutrition, healthcare, and other subjects related to agriculture and homemaking.
In 1963, Amelia made her home and office in Selma a center for strategy sessions for Selma’s civil rights battles, including its voting rights campaign. In 1964, Boynton ran for the Congress from Alabama, hoping to encourage black registration and voting. She was the first Black woman to run for office in Alabama and the first woman of any race to run for the ticket of the Democratic Party in the state.
In 1964 and 1965, Boynton worked with Martin Luther King Jr., Diane Nash, James Bevel, and others of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to plan demonstrations for civil and voting rights.
In 1984, she became founding vice-president of the Schiller Institute affiliated with Lyndon LaRouche. She was awarded the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Medal in 1990. #AmeliaBoyntonRobinson died on August 26, 2015, in Montgomery, Alabama, eight days after celebrating her 104th birthday.
Art: #ReedRMcCants
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