Victoria Adams, 73, Activist Pushed Civil Rights in Mississippi
Victoria Gray Adams, 73, who helped open Freedom Schools that pushed for civil rights in Mississippi in 1964 and became a founding member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, died Saturday of cancer at her home in Petersburg, Va.
A native of Hattiesburg, Miss., Adams had a thriving business as a door-to-door cosmetics saleswoman before devoting herself full time to the civil rights movement.
Along with Fannie Lou Hamer and others, she attempted to unseat the all-white Mississippi Democratic Party delegation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, N.J.
Though they did not replace the delegation, the Freedom Democrats brought national attention to Mississippi’s racial and political divisions.
In 2004, Adams and others who formed the party were recognized at the Democratic convention in Boston for their trailblazing role.
“There was not a place in Mississippi that was not dangerous in those days,” Adams recalled in 2004. “Most people decided not to get involved. You might lose your job, your house. They might hurt your family.”
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