# Patricia Stephens Due

Patricia Stephens Due (December 9, 1939 – February 7, 2012) was one of the leading African-American civil rights activists in the United States, especially 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 (née Powell) and Horace Walter Stephens. Due's parents were both involved in civic activities, as Stephens' stepfather was a high school civics teachers in the segregated Palm Beach County school system. She was the second of three children.

#### Florida A&M University

In 1963, she married Florida A&M University (FAMU) law student John D. Due, Jr., who went on to become a prominent civil rights attorney. The couple had three daughters: Tananarive, Johnita and Lydia. Due's university studies were repeatedly interrupted by protests and arrests that sometimes got her suspended, and speaking and fundraising tours. Due was arrested in Tallahassee, St. Petersburg, Ocala, Miami, and New York. Though she entered Florida A&M University in 1957, she did not receive her degree until 1967.

## Activism and organizational leadership

Due and her sister Priscilla started fighting segregation when Due was 13 by insisting on being served at the "White only" window of their local Dairy Queen (name of business: The Polar Bear) in Belle Glade, instead of the "colored" window.
During the summer of 1959, the sisters attended a nonviolent resistance workshop organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in Miami. Following the summer workshop, Patricia and Priscilla Stephens co-founded the Tallahassee CORE chapter. Patricia and other students affiliated with CORE, following the February 1, 1960 Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins, sat down at the Tallahassee Woolworth's variety counter on February 20, 1960. The students refused to leave, and all 11 students were charged with unlawful assembly and disturbing the peace by riotous conduct. A local minister, Rev. Daniel Speed, a leader of the Inter-Civic Council, later bailed out the students. Despite the arrests, sit-ins continued. On March 12, 1960, six white students from FSU and six FAMU CORE members created an interracial sit-in, and were eventually arrested. Witnessing the arrest, Patricia helped organize 1000 students to march from the FAMU campus toward downtown Tallahassee, but were stopped by police officers with teargas. Due, who had been leading the marchers, experienced a police officer throwing tear gas in her face. As a result, she suffered permanent eye damage.
The 11 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.

### Letter from Leon County

During Due's jail-in, she wrote Letter from Leon County Jail which gained traction in the broader civil rights movement. The letter describes Due's participation in several CORE sponsored events including: a practice sit-in at Woolworth's, the February 20 sit-in, the arraignment for the sit-in, and the trail for the sit-in. Stephens' letter is a plea for people in general to advocate for civil rights. Stephens suggests she is ready to go to jail again for her beliefs.

## Death

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