Ethel Mae Mathews

Ethel Mae Mathews (also spelled Ethel Mae Matthews; 1932 or 1933 – March 14, 2005) was an American welfare rights and tenants' rights activist and community organizer in Atlanta, Georgia. She founded, and was the first president of, the Atlanta Welfare Rights Organization and was a leading figure in welfare-rights organizing centered on Emmaus House in the Peoplestown neighborhood of Atlanta.[1][2][3]

Life and activism

Mathews was born in Loachapoka, Alabama and moved to Atlanta in 1950, where she raised four children.[2] She organized welfare recipients and tenants, including work connected with Tenants United for Fairness (TUFF), and later neighborhood organizing around development and displacement issues associated with the 1996 Olympics.[3][2] She also ran for the Atlanta City Council.[3]

Mathews was a spokesperson for the plaintiffs in Armour v. Nix, an ACLU-filed school desegregation lawsuit begun in 1972.[4][5]

Death

Mathews died of heart failure at her home in Atlanta on March 14, 2005, aged 72.[6][3]

References

  1. ↑ "Ethel Mae Matthews was the founder and first president of the Atlanta Welfare Rights Organization". Digital Library of Georgia. Retrieved January 22, 2026.
  2. 1 2 3 Carlisle, Lois (March 14, 2021). "Unwavering, Unyielding, Uncompromising: Ethel Mae Matthews". Atlanta History Center. Retrieved January 22, 2026.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Davies, Tom Adam (September 11, 2017). "Ethel Mae Matthews and the Emmaus House in Atlanta". Black Perspectives. African American Intellectual History Society. Retrieved January 22, 2026.
  4. ↑ Brown-Nagin, Tomiko (February 9, 2011). "11 End to an 'Annual Agony': The Black Backlash against Brown and Busing, 1969–1974". Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780195386592.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-538659-2.
  5. ↑ Gross, Ariela J. (2012). "From the Streets to the Courts: Doing Grassroots Legal History of the Civil Rights Era" (PDF). Texas Law Review. 90. Retrieved January 22, 2026.
  6. ↑ "A tribute to two women warriors". Workers World. April 28, 2005. Retrieved January 22, 2026.
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