People
Victoria Gray Adams (1926-2006): Hattiesburg organizer and Senate candidate
The life of Victoria Gray Adams of Hattiesburg: SNCC field secretary, Freedom Democratic Party founder, 1964 Senate candidate and 1965 congressional challenger.
In short
Victoria Gray Adams (born Victoria Almeter Jackson, November 5, 1926; died August 12, 2006) was a civil rights leader from Palmer's Crossing in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. She joined SNCC's voter registration work in 1962, taught citizenship classes, became a SNCC field secretary, helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, ran for the U.S. Senate against John Stennis in 1964, and was one of three MFDP contestants, with Fannie Lou Hamer and Annie Devine, in the 1965 Congressional Challenge.
- Born
- November 5, 1926, Palmer's Crossing, Hattiesburg
- Died
- August 12, 2006, Baltimore, Maryland
- Parents
- Mack and Annie Mae Ott Jackson
- Education
- Jackson State, Wilberforce and Tuskegee
- 1964
- First woman from Mississippi to run for the U.S. Senate (MFDP)
- Later career
- Campus minister, Virginia State University
- Papers
- University of Southern Mississippi
Where did Victoria Gray Adams grow up?
She was born Victoria Almeter Jackson on November 5, 1926, in Palmer's Crossing, the historically Black community of Hattiesburg, to Mack and Annie Mae Ott Jackson. She graduated from the Depriest Consolidated Schools there and studied at Jackson State College, Wilberforce University in Ohio and Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, according to the Mississippi Encyclopedia.
How did she join the movement?
When SNCC organizers Curtis Hayes and Hollis Watkins came to Hattiesburg in March 1962, she was one of the first people at their meeting. She tried to register to vote herself and used her standing in the community to win support for SNCC. She spoke about its work in local churches, organized a phone tree so the field workers could count on at least one hot meal a day, and persuaded her pastor at St. John's Methodist Episcopal Church to host citizenship classes. After SCLC training in 1963 she taught those classes herself and soon became a SNCC field secretary. See her teaching method.
What did she do in 1964?
She helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and ran for the U.S. Senate against John C. Stennis, the first woman from Mississippi to run for the Senate. At Atlantic City she stood with Fannie Lou Hamer and Annie Devine against the two-seat compromise. Our page on her Senate campaign explains what the race meant.
What happened in 1965?
She was one of the three Freedom Democratic contestants who challenged Mississippi's congressmen in the House of Representatives. She stood for the seat held by William Colmer in the Fifth District. The challenge was dismissed in September 1965, but it added sworn evidence to the case for the Voting Rights Act. See the Congressional Challenge.
What did she do later?
She later worked as a campus minister at Virginia State University and lectured at colleges across the country. She appears in the documentary Standing on My Sisters' Shoulders. She died on August 12, 2006, at her son's home in Baltimore. Her papers are at the University of Southern Mississippi. The Mississippi Encyclopedia quotes her motto that life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
Questions readers ask
Why is she called Victoria Gray and Victoria Gray Adams?
She was known as Victoria Gray during the 1960s and later as Victoria Gray Adams. Sources from the period use Gray; later ones use Gray Adams. Her birth name was Victoria Jackson.
Who did Victoria Gray run against for Senate?
Senator John C. Stennis, in 1964. She ran on the Freedom Democratic ticket; the Mississippi Encyclopedia notes that most Black Mississippians could not vote at the time.
Where are her papers?
In the University Archives of the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. Virginia State University's campus ministry office holds records of her years there.
Sources
- Victoria Gray AdamsSNCC Digital Gateway
- Victoria Gray AdamsMississippi Encyclopedia (Annie Payton)
- The Mississippi Congressional Challenge, January 4, 1965U.S. House Office of the Historian
We checked every date and name on this page against the sources above. If you find an error, write to contact@fannielouhamer.info.
Continue in the archive
- MovementGray's 1964 Senate raceWhy Victoria Gray ran for the U.S. Senate against John Stennis in 1964 as a Freedom Democrat, how the campaign worked and what it showed about Mississippi voting.
- MovementGray Adams as teacherHow Victoria Gray Adams used SCLC's citizenship school model in Hattiesburg to teach adults to read, register and organize, and why that teaching model mattered.
- MovementThe 1965 House challengeHow the Freedom Democrats challenged Mississippi's five congressmen in 1965, why Hamer, Annie Devine and Victoria Gray were named, and what the evidence showed.
- PeopleAnnie DevineThe life of Annie Devine of Canton, Mississippi, a teacher and insurance agent who led the local movement, helped found the MFDP and challenged Congress in 1965.