Chapel hill

Diane Robertson

Diane Robertson was born on the island of Jamaica and raised in Jamaica, Queens, New York City. Raised by civically minded, immigrant parents, going to high school at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, and attending college down the road from the Kent State massacre, her political consciousness was deeply informed by these pivotal historical moments. From New York City, to Case Western Reserve University, to the Rio Grande Valley, to—for the last approximately 20 years—Chapel Hill, she has always committed herself to fighting for social justice. After becoming a U.S. citizen in 1999, that commitment centered more and more on electoral politics and voting rights.

Robertson began registering voters immediately after becoming a citizen, but her activism took on another meaning during Obama’s first presidential campaign. After Barack Obama won the Democratic primary, she dove headfirst into his campaign, registering voters, canvassing neighborhoods, and spending hours (often with her daughter) at the campaign office. After the campaign, she was hired as the regional field director for Organizing for America, a community organizing project founded after Obama’s election. Beginning with a service area of one third of the state of North Carolina, she orchestrated the project’s grassroots organizing around the Affordable Care Act and the 2010 midterm elections.

Since then, Robertson volunteered for and now serves on the Board of Democracy North Carolina, a non partisan organization born out of the civil rights movement that uses “research, organizing, and advocacy to increase voter participation [and] reduce the influence of big money in politics,” serves on the board of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, and co-chairs the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP Political Action Committee. She was recently chosen to serve as a delegate for the Democratic National Convention.

In 2018, Diane produced a film entitled While I Breathe, I Hope: A Film About Bakari Sellers, which, through the experience of Sellers’ campaign for lieutenant governor in South Carolina, “explores what it means to be young, Black, and Democrat in the American South.” Like her approach to teaching, the upcoming centennial of the suffrage movement, and her political activism in general, she sees the film as a potential pedagogical tool to bring more people—young and old—into political and civil engagement.

Robertson draws inspiration from the women who came before her, such as Pauli Murray, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, and Rosanell Eaton, as she continues the struggle for voting rights that they began.

Mary Jones Phillips

Mary Jones Phillips has been active with organizations such as the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP and her sorority Delta Sigma Theta, an organization with a long legacy of women's rights advocacy. After the 2013 introduction of voter ID laws in North Carolina, Phillips became active in voting rights issues.

Hear Mary tell her story on WUNC's The State of Things with host Frank Stasio and 1971 curatorial partner Gloria Thomas.

Mae McLendon

Mae McLendon is a native North Carolinian who has dedicated over 50 years of her life to securing the right to vote in the state. Born in the town of Red Springs in Robeson County, Mclendon grew up in a multi-racial community in which voting and owning property were “what white people did.” Then, after moving to the historic African-American Pine Knolls neighborhood of Chapel Hill before she was even 18, she met local activist and community leader Rebecca Clark, who immediately got her involved in voter registration and advocacy. She hasn’t stopped since.

In addition to becoming “Rebecca Clark’s shadow,” McLendon has always been surrounded and supported by strong, encouraging women. With the help and encouragement from, for example, her mother and sisters, her grade and high school teachers and librarians, and then-director of the UNC Campus YMCA-YWCA, Anne Queen, McLendon attended UNC-Chapel Hill as an undergraduate soon after it integrated. There, she not only attended classes, fought for racial justice through the Campus Y and Black Student Movement, and worked closely with Rebecca Clark on voter registration, she also raised her then two-year old daughter.

After receiving her undergraduate diploma, she went back to school for a degree in social work, which she has used in the service of incarcerated people, the homeless community, and local afterschool programs.

McLendon has been involved in a number of historic political campaigns, always focusing her energies on registering voters and encouraging turnout. She canvassed for the 1972 McGovern presidential campaign, worked with Howard Lee, the first African-American mayor of Chapel Hill, and helped elect a racially and gender diverse slate of candidates to the Orange County Board of Commissioners in 1972.

Outside of her partisan work, she serves as a precinct judge, transports people to the polls on election day, and always makes sure that there are enough voter registration forms at the back of her Saint Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church (now in both English and Spanish). The Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP awarded Mclendon for her lifelong commitment to voting rights with the Rebecca Clark Community Service Award—named in honor of her lifelong mentor.

Material

Articles

New exhibit illuminates North Carolina’s complicated history with women’s suffrage. By Hannah Correll. Read here on The Daily Tar Heel.

Carolina celebrates unsung heroes of voting rights through art. By Emilie Poplett, University Communications. Read here on The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

‘1971’: How Faces In The Trees Trace NC Women’s Fight For Voting Rights. Read here on WUNC North Carolina Public Radio