The subject of a famous civil rights photo, Mamie King-Chalmers, dies at 81

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Mamie King-Chalmers, who can be seen protesting in an iconic civil rights photo taken in Birmingham, Alabama, has died. She was 81.

As reported by Arkansas Online, King-Chalmers passed away in her Detroit residence on Tuesday, Nov. 29. She died of undisclosed causes, according to her daughter, Lasuria Allman.

Allman told Arkansas Online that her mother should be “remembered for her courage, strength and determination to make a difference.”

In her early 20s, King-Chalmers was among three Black protesters who were hosed with water by Birmingham firefighters during a civil rights demonstration in 1963, per the outlet.

A photograph of the incident, which King-Chalmers said left her “deaf in one ear” due to water damage, was published in an edition of Life magazine, and has since become an important visual representation of the violent clashes between Black activists and white people during the historic movement.

King-Chalmers said during an interview published by Voices of the Civil Rights Movement that in 1963, she heard about meetings hosted by Martin Luther King, Jr. at 16th St. Baptist Church. She attended some meetings and was moved to join the demonstrations he led, she told the publication.

“I had experienced a lot of the injustice throughout the stores, supermarkets, the buses,” she said, adding, “My whole family was involved in the civil rights struggle because they knew about the things that were going on in Birmingham. So my father said: ‘We going down to get involved.’”

She recalled her experience being jailed for five days after entering a bakery that refused service to Black patrons and eating their food, a plan she said was developed by her father.

“What brought me to go to jail is we went to Bohemian Bakery and he gave us money to purchase items but what we were supposed to do was just walk in, because they didn’t serve Black people in there, walk in and grab whatever they had on the counter,” she told the outlet.

Referring to her stint in jail with other demonstrators, she said: “It was one of the most horrible experiences.”

She told Voices of the Civil Rights Movement that it is important that young people of the current generation “see what we struggled for 50 years ago.”

“I believe I made a difference in what I did, I’ll do it again if I have to,” she said during the interview.

According to Arkansas Online, King-Chalmers held an associate’s degree in gerontology from Wayne County Community College. Walter Chalmers, her husband, passed away in February, per the report.

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