Amelia Boynton Biography (1911–2015)
Amelia Boynton Robinson was a civil rights pioneer who championed voting rights for African Americans. She was brutally beaten for helping to lead a 1965 civil rights march, which became known as Bloody Sunday.v
Who Was Amelia Boynton?
Amelia Boynton's earliest activism included holding Black voter registration drives in Selma, Alabama, from the 1930s through the '50s. In 1964, she became both the first African American woman and the first female Democratic candidate to run for a seat in Congress from Alabama. The following year, she helped lead a civil rights march during which she and her fellow activists were brutally beaten by state troopers. The event, which became known as Bloody Sunday, drew nationwide attention to the civil rights movement. In 1990, Boynton won the histMartin Luther King Jr. Medal of Freedom.
Early Life
Boynton was born Amelia Platts on August 18, 1911, to George and Anna Platts of Savannah, Georgia. Both of her parents were of African American, Cherokee Indian and German descent. They had 10 children and made going to church central to their upbringing.
Boynton spent her first two years of college at Georgia State College (now Savannah State University), then transferred to the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in Alabama. She graduated from Tuskegee with a home economics degree before further pursuing her education at Tennessee State University, Virginia State University and Temple University.
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