Gloria Blackwell

Gloria Blackwell, also known as Gloria Rackley (March 11, 1927 – December 7, 2010), was an African-American civil rights activist and educator. She was at the center of the Civil Rights Movement in Orangeburg, South Carolina during the 1960s, attracting some national attention and a visit by Dr. Martin Luther King of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Her activities were widely covered (and criticized) by the local press.

Arrested for sitting in the "whites only" area of the regional hospital when her daughter needed emergency treatment, Blackwell sued and won, ending its segregation. After being fired by the city's white school board in economic retaliation, she sued the board and won in 1962. She left the state in the 1960s, teaching at colleges and universities. She earned a doctorate at Emory University in 1973, and taught at Clark Atlanta University for 20 years.

Biography Gloria Thomasina Blackwell was born in Little Rock in Dillon County, South Carolina, the second of three children and the only girl, to Harrison Benjamin Blackwell (born 1889), a barber, and Lurline Olivia Thomas Blackwell (born 1895), a teacher at the Little Rock Colored School and musician at the Methodist church. Her brothers were Harrison and LeGrand. Her father was a businessman and barber. Her mother was a school teacher, pianist, choir director, community volunteer and daughter of Methodist minister Rev. LeGrand Lee Thomas. Gloria's maternal granduncle S. J. McDonald was active with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Blackwell attended Mather Academy in Camden, South Carolina and graduated high school in Sumter, South Carolina in 1943. At the age of 16, she enrolled at her mother's alma mater, Claflin College in Orangeburg. She returned to live in Orangeburg near her family with her two small daughters. Blackwell continued with graduate study, receiving a Master of Arts degree in education from South Carolina State University.

Civil rights activity Blackwell became active in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s, She became an officer in the local NAACP.

In October 1961, Blackwell was arrested for sitting in the whites only waiting area of Orangeburg hospital with her daughter Jamelle, whom she had taken to the emergency room for an injured finger. Blackwell returned to the whites-only area; she was arrested. Blackwell and her daughter filed a civil lawsuit, Rackley v. Tri-County Hospital,

The white superintendent of schools fired Blackwell/Rackley as a third-grade teacher from the Negro schools In the dismissal letter, the superintendent of schools wrote that Blackwell was "rabid in her zeal for social change and was unfit to be a teacher."

After passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Blackwell felt she could leave the city.

Blackwell was married a total of five times, twice to the same man after an interval of more than 30 years. During the civil rights era, she was known in Orangeburg by her then-married name of Rackley. Later, to avoid confusion, Blackwell chose to use her maiden name as her professional name.