Mamie King-Chalmers, who, as a young woman, appeared in an iconic photo depicting the struggle for civil rights in Alabama, died at age 81.
According to the Associated Press, King-Chalmers passed away in her Detroit home on Tuesday, November 29, according to her daughter, Lasuria Allman. A cause of death has not been disclosed.
During a 1963 civil rights demonstration in Birmingham, Alabama, King-Chalmers was one of three Black people forced to brace themselves against a building while being blasted with water from a firehose. She was in her early 20s at the time.
In an interview for NBC Universal’s Voices of the Civil Rights Movement, King-Chalmers shared the injustices she experienced and how she was inspired to participate in demonstrations by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who held meetings at 16th St. Baptist Church in 1963.
“I had experienced a lot of the injustice throughout the stores, supermarkets, the buses,” she said, adding, “My whole family was involved in the civil rights struggle because they knew about the things that were going on in Birmingham. So my father said: ‘We’re going down to get involved.”
She also recalled being jailed for five days for entering a bakery that refused to serve Black customers and eating food from the establishment.
“What brought me to go to jail is we went to Bohemian Bakery, and he gave us money to purchase items, but what we were supposed to do was just walk in, because they didn’t serve Black people in there, walk in and grab whatever they had on the counter,” she told the outlet.
Describing those several days in jail, she said: “It was one of the most horrible experiences” and stressed that it was important for young people of this generation “to understand what we struggled for 50 years ago.”
“I believe I made a difference in what I did; I’ll do it again if I have to,” she said.
According to The AP, King-Chalmers earned a gerontology associate degree from Wayne County Community College. Walter Chalmers, her husband, reportedly passed away in February.
“She should be remembered for her courage, strength, and determination to make a difference,” her daughter said.