Gloria Richardson is best known as the the leader of the Cambridge Movement, a struggle for civil rights and economic opportunities in Cambridge, Maryland.
Richardson was born in Gloria St. Clair Hayes in 1922 in Baltimore, Maryland. At the age of six, Richardson’s family moved to Cambridge, Maryland where her grandfather, Herbert M. St. Clair, was one of the wealthiest citizens. He owned a funeral parlour, grocery store and butcher shop and was the sole African American member of the Cambridge City Council through most of the early 20th Century. Black people were able to vote in Cambridge, but made up only a third of the population and so, were never able to completely overturn Jim Crow laws. When Richardson’s Uncle was in his twenties he was denied treatment at the segregated local hospital, because of this he died of his illness.
At the age of 16, Richardson enrolled at Howard University where she began participating in civil rights protests. She graduated in 1942 with a degree in sociology and worked or the federal government in Washington, D.C during World War II. After the war, she returned to Cambridge and applied for social work jobs, despite her grandfather’s political and economic influence, the Maryland Department of Social Services refused to hire Gloria or any other black social workers. Richardson married, becoming Gloria Richardson and devoted herself to raising her family for the next thirteen years.
In 1961, the civil rights movement reached Cambridge in the form of the Freedom Riders. At the time, Black people in the city lived in the 2nd ward and were facing severe economic inequality, with black unemployment was at 40%. Many areas of the town were still segregated and the majority of public spaces were white-only. Richardson’s daughter, Donna joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s (SNCC) who were campaigning to desegregate the city’s public spaces. Richardson and other parents created the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee a year later, in 1962 with one major difference, it was not committed to non-violence like the SNCC. Richardson was selected to lead CNAC, the first push for civil rights to take place outside of the Deep South. The Cambridge Movement began with black Cambridge residents sitting in at segregated movie theaters, bowling alleys and restaurants and then expanded its efforts to fight against public-housing discrimination, unequal health care for black and for the economic rights of Cambridge citizens, many of whom were burdened with low wages and unemployment. Richardson was well off, but she knew all too well how it had felt when she was denied a job that related to her degree. Richardson encouraged the members of CNAC to defend themselves, stating that “Self-defense may actually be a deterrent to further violence. Hitherto, the government has moved into conflict situations only when matters approach the level of insurrection.” The focus on economic equality and use of armed self-defence tactics that Richardson advocated have been cited as signalling the beginning of the Black Power phase of the civil rights movement.
In the spring 1963, 80 protesters including Richardson were arrested over a period of seven weeks. In June that year, the protests escalated into a major riot, during with Richardson spoke out in support of non-violence. Due to the violence, Governor J. Millard Tawes imposed martial law on Cambridge and sent in the National Guard. A month later, Richardson and other civil rights activists met with Attorney General Robert Kennedy and other government officials to broker the Treaty of Cambridge. The agreement covered desegregation, housing and employment issues and by autumn black children were attending previously all-white schools. The buses, library and hospital were all desegregated and a black policeman was promoted. Richardson became a prominent civil rights leader and in August that year, she attended the March on Washington where she was one of the six “Negro Women Fighters for Freedom” on the stage. She, and many of the other women were not permitted to address the crowd, although Richardson did manage to say hello before the microphone was snatched away from her. She later found out that there was a separate area for women to march, so that in photographs it looked like the march was made up only of men: male civil rights leaders male civil rights leaders walked to the march down Pennsylvania Avenue with the press and the women were relegated to walking down Independence Avenue.
In the autumn of 1963, the part of the Treaty that had dealt with discrimination in public accommodations was repealed when put to a vote. Richardson was criticised for not encouraging black citizens to vote, but countered with the fact that they should not have to vote to obtain rights that were already due to them. In May 1964, Alabama’s segregationist governor, George Wallace visited Cambridge and Richardson led a protest against his appearances at the Fireman’s Arena, a segregated ice-skating rink that had been the target of many of the original protests. In July 1964, the historic Civil Rights Act was signed and the National Guard were finally removed from Cambridge.
Richardson left Cambridge a month later, citing exhaustion from leading nearly two years of continuous demonstrations. She moved to New York City with her youngest daughter Tamara and married photographer Frank Dandridge (her first marriage had ended in divorce in the late 1950s). She kept in touch with Cambridge and with the local movement and worked with Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited, Associated Community Teams, and the New York City Department for the Ageing.
Richardson was an inspiration both to those seeking to radicalize SNCC, both in terms of her focus on economic security, and her challenging of nonviolent ideology. She was a pioneer in the civil rights movement and was mentioned by name in the famous “Message to the Grass Roots” speech given by Malcolm X in November 1963 at the Northern Negro Grass Roots Leadership Conference in Detroit.