Florida Senate - 2012                            (NP)    SR 2138
       
       
       
       By Senator Joyner
       
       
       
       
       18-03725A-12                                          20122138__
    1                          Senate Resolution                        
    2         A resolution remembering the lifelong activism of
    3         civil rights champion Patricia Stephens Due.
    4  
    5         WHEREAS, Patricia Stephens Due, the second of three
    6  children born to Lottie Mae Powell Stephens and Horace Walter
    7  Stephens, was born in Quincy on December 9, 1939, and
    8         WHEREAS, Patricia Stephens Due was a devoted wife of 49
    9  years to her husband and life partner in civil rights activism,
   10  attorney John D. Due, Jr., a loving and proud mother to her
   11  three daughters, Johnita, Tananarive, and Lydia, a doting
   12  grandmother to five grandchildren, a treasured sister to
   13  Priscilla Stephens Kruize and Walter Stephens, and a dutiful
   14  stepdaughter to the late Marion H. Hamilton, and
   15         WHEREAS, Patricia Stephens Due was a legendary civil rights
   16  activist whose challenges to racial discrimination began at the
   17  age of 13 when she attempted to use the “whites only” window at
   18  a Dairy Queen and continued during her college years when she
   19  led demonstrations to integrate lunch counters and theaters
   20  which resulted in her repeated arrests in Tallahassee, where she
   21  and fellow protesters were jailed for 49 days for refusing to
   22  pay $300 in fines, and
   23         WHEREAS, in 1959, Patrician Stephens Due formed a local
   24  chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality, serving a leadership
   25  role in the organization and overseeing voter registration and
   26  voter education activities in 10 North Florida counties, which
   27  resulted in repeated arrests and compilation of a 400-page FBI
   28  file documenting her civil disobedience actions, and
   29         WHEREAS, Patricia Stevens Due was a recipient of the
   30  Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Outstanding Leadership, the Gandhi
   31  Award for Outstanding Work in Human Relations, the National
   32  Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
   33  Florida Freedom Award, and an honorary doctorate in humane
   34  letters from her alma mater, Florida A & M University, and
   35         WHEREAS, Patricia Stephens Due was a lifelong champion for
   36  the rights and equality of all people with her activism for
   37  integration extending to campaigns for economic and voting
   38  rights, as well as supporting labor issues and other activities
   39  to promote equal treatment under the law for all people, and
   40         WHEREAS, Patricia Stephens Due chronicled her efforts,
   41  experiences, and courage in “Freedom in the Family: A Mother
   42  Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights,” which she wrote
   43  with her daughter, novelist Tananarive Due, as a memoir of the
   44  early days of the civil rights movement and the strain on
   45  families and emotional turmoil for children whose parents are
   46  activists, and
   47         WHEREAS, Patricia Stephens Due remained steadfast in her
   48  campaign against social injustice throughout her life and
   49  encouraged others to strive for freedom from discrimination and
   50  oppression, and
   51         WHEREAS, it pleased the Almighty God to take our esteemed
   52  friend and civil rights heroine, Patricia Stephens Due, to His
   53  heavenly home on February 7, 2012, NOW, THEREFORE,
   54  
   55  Be It Resolved by the Senate of the State of Florida:
   56  
   57         That the members of the Senate remember the lifelong
   58  activism of civil rights champion Patricia Stephens Due, which
   59  was characterized by personal sacrifice to bring equality,
   60  freedom, and justice to all Floridians.