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CIVIL RIGHTS COMMUNITY MOURNS DEATH OF AMELIA

BOYNTON ROBINSON

Statement By Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

August 27, 2015
The civil rights community is mourning the passing of 104-year-old Mrs.
Amelia Boynton Robinson of Selma, Alabama, lovingly known to many as a
rabble-rouser and agitator. Mrs. Boynton - of African American, Cherokee and
German linage - was born on August 18, 1911 in Savannah, Georgia. As an
activist she tried to march, along with John Lewis and others, across the
Edmond Pettus Bridge and was severely injured in the Bloody Sunday events
in Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965. She was also an organizer and key
figure as she hosted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., while the march from Selmato-Montgomery was planned in her living room, which eventually led to
President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act on August 6,
1965, the crown jewel of civil rights legislation in the 1960s. She was President
Obamas special guest at his 2015 State of the Union Address and at the
50th commemoration march in Selma on March 6, 2015 she and President
Barack Obama crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge together.

Her parents stressed the importance of education to Amelia as she was growing
up and she attended Georgia State University (now Savannah State University),
a historically black university, and eventually graduated from Tuskegee
Institute, now Tuskegee University. Later she studied at Tennessee State,
Virginia State and Temple University. Her education, combined with her early
childhood religious training, led her to involvement in the causes of womens
suffrage and African American civil rights.
Mrs. Boynton first registered to vote in the difficult times of 1934 despite, for
blacks, Alabamas politically disenfranchising constitution. From Selma, she
headed the voter registrations efforts in Dallas County. While Selma was half
African American and she had been engaged in many voting rights protests
before the 1965 Voting Rights Act, only 300 blacks were actually registered to
vote. By March of 1966 less than a year after the Voting Rights Act became
law and because of the presence of Federal Registrars 11,000 blacks were
registered to vote.
She personally knew the botanist, scholar and inventor George Washington
Carver as a result of their mutual connection to Tuskegee. She met Reverend
Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in
Montgomery in 1954 where he was pastor. Mrs. Boynton was also the first
African American woman to run for any office in Alabama on the Democratic
Party ticket receiving 10% of the vote. In 2014, the Selma City Council
renamed Lapsley Street, Boyntons Street in honor of Amelia and her deceased
husband Sam Boynton.
She leaves behind two sons, Bill Boynton, Jr. and Bruce Carver Boynton. Our
condolences and prayers are offered to the entire Boynton family and friends.
-30Rainbow PUSH Coalition is a multi-racial, multi-issue, progressive, international organization
that was formed in December 1996 by the Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. through merging of
two organizations he founded Operation PUSH People United to Serve Humanity (estab. 1971)
and the Rainbow Coalition (estab. 1984). With headquarters in Chicago and offices in
Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New York and Oakland, the organization works to make the American Dream a reality
for all citizens while advocating for peace and justice around the world. RPC is dedicated to improving the lives of all people by serving as a voice for the voiceless.
Its mission is to protect, defend and gain civil rights by leveling the economic and educational playing fields while promoting peace and justice around the world.
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Keep up with Rev. Jackson and the work of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition at www.rainbowpush.org.