Gwendolyn Marie Patton (born October 14, 1943) is a prominent civil rights activist and educator. Patton’s first steps into the civil rights movement were with the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) where she would help African Americans register to vote with her grandparents. During this time, she also began participating in the Montgomery bus boycott. After her time with the MIA, Patton could be seen working with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) at Tuskegee University and the Lowndes County Freedom Organization. Following her time at Tuskegee University, she assisted in establishing both anti-war and human rights organizations that furthermore supported the feminist and Black Power movements, as well as communism, the Cuban Revolution, and marxism. In the 1984 presidential debates, she started her political career as a delegate for Jesse Jackson’s campaign. Then in 1986 as a candidate for Alabama legislature, and finally in 1992 in the U.S. Senate. Patton was also a historian, which helped her to construct the H. Councill Trenholm State Technical College, which is now called the Trenholm State Community College.
Early life
Patton was born to Robert and Jeanetta (Bolden) Patton in Detroit, Michigan. Robert was a union representative that worked for the United Auto Workers Union, and Jeanetta was a Lewis Business College graduate. Both parents encouraged Gwen and her brother, Robert, Jr., to focus on school and to learn as much as they could. Their parents had taught them to have a purpose in life, and that part of the meaning of life was to “uplift the race.” After her mother had passed when she was 16, Patton moved to Montgomery to live with some relatives that she had visited occasionally in the past during the summers. While visiting in Montgomery, prior to the passing of her mother, Patton would often work with her father’s parents in their home to help Black voters prepare for the literacy test when they were getting ready to vote. The literacy test would often be the prerequisite test that would be what denied Black people their right to vote, which prompted Patton’s grandparents to turn their home into a “citizenship school” to combat this barrier. Through working with her relatives, Gwen found a deep passion for the civil rights movement, especially with voting rights.
Education
Tuskegee University
Patton attended Tuskegee University, where she was described as an outstanding student, a cheerleader, and the first woman president of the Student Government Association (SGA). During the mid-1960’s, she worked through the Tuskegee Institute Advancement League (TIAL) to help other Tuskegee students become an aligned, but separate section of the Black activism movement. Many of her classmates found Patton to be a capable and dynamic leader, and they would often join her at different segregation boycotts, or anti-war organizing. They also agreed with Patton’s views on voting rights and partnered with SNCC, as well as created the Black Panther Party for Lowndes County.
Graduate education
Patton went on to further her education in 1972 by receiving a master’s degree in history and education from the Antioch School of Law (now the University of the District of Columbia). After receiving her master’s degree, she then went on to work towards a doctorate degree in political history and higher education administration from Union Graduate School (now Clarkson University) in New York.