Patricia Stephens Due

Patricia Stephens Due (December 9, 1939 – February 7, 2012) was one of the leading African-American civil rights activists in her home state of Florida. Along with her sister Priscilla and others trained in nonviolent protest by CORE, Due spent 49 days in one of the nation's first jail-ins, refusing to pay a fine for sitting in a Woolworth's "White only" lunch counter in Tallahassee, Florida in 1960. Her eyes were damaged from tear gas used by police on students protesting such arrests, so she wore dark glasses for the rest of her life. She served in many leadership roles in CORE and the NAACP, fighting against segregated stores, buses, theaters, schools, restaurants, and hotels, protesting unjust laws, and leading one of the most dangerous voter registration efforts in the country in northern Florida in the 1960s.

With her daughter, Tananarive, Due wrote Freedom in the Family: a Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights, documenting the struggle she participated in, initially as a student at Florida A&M University, and later working for civil rights organizations and Florida communities, sometimes in partnership with her husband, civil rights attorney John D. Due, Jr.

Early life and education Patricia Stephens was born on December 9, 1939, in Quincy, Florida to Lottie Mae Powell and Horace Walter Stephens.

The twelve students arrested on February 20 were tried and found guilty on March 17, 1960, including Due. Eight refused to pay the $300 fine, deciding instead to go to jail. These students were the first in the country to accept a jail sentence rather than pay their fines. Those eight students served 49 days at the Leon County Jail: FAMU students Patricia and Priscilla Stephens, John Broxton, Barbara Broxton and William Larkins, and three other students—Clement Carney, Angelina Nance, and 16-year-old high school student Henry Marion Steele (son of activist pastor Rev. C.K. Steele).

The "jail-in" gained nationwide attention, and the students received a supportive telegram from Martin Luther King Jr. Due sent a letter to baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson, who published it in a column he wrote. Robinson later sent the jailed students diaries so they could write down their experiences. The correspondence between CORE officials and the Stephens sisters began to appear in the CORE-LATOR and in numerous black-owned newspapers in the North. After the jail-in, Due and the others were invited by Robinson to travel the country, participating in speaking tours to publicize the civil rights movement. She met with leaders such as Eleanor Roosevelt and author James Baldwin, and was jailed on numerous occasions as a leader in the movement.

Death Patricia Stephens Due died at age 72 in Smyrna, Georgia in 2012. Due died due to thyroid cancer.