Meet Mandy Carter, the legendary ‘Scientist of Activism’ who fought for Black and LGBTQ+ rights in the American South

If you haven’t yet figured out how activists are made, then meet Mandy Carter. The Durham, N.C.,-based Black lesbian activist powerhouse has spent her life in the American struggle for social justice. She wasn’t just a participant – she’s a trailblazer, and mobilizer who went from leading a contingent of women across 600 miles toward freedom and against the release of nuclear weapons to being the founder of SONG, Southerners on New Ground, inserting non-violence and LGBTQ activism by centering the South, for over five decades.

Over her remarkable life, Carter hasn’t just joined movements, she’s shaped them. From early on, she worked with the War Resisters League – this country’s oldest “pacifist” organization proving that any war is violence and all violence is a crime against humanity. Carter believed in the removal of all causes of war, including racism, sexism and all forms of exploitation. Marching for freedom is an example of non-violent resistance and a significant alternative to armed militias, or riots, where entire communities might be burned down.

We know about the power of the March when we think of the iconic 1963 March on Washington – there would have been no Pride March without this iconic civil rights march. Okay, okay, there would have been no Pride march without the Stonewall Riots of 1969, either, but that is a part of it – history isn’t linear, and violent attacks include non-violent responses which brings us back to Carter.

Foundations of activism

Activists aren’t born, they are made. Carter was born in 1948 and grew up in an orphanage, raised in foster care in New York. At a very young age, she was introduced to the American Friends Service Committee and Quakerism in High School, groups that believe both politically and religiously, in the divine light of each person. With those beliefs held true, while attending a Quaker work camp, Carter learned about Bayard Rustin – a Black gay civil rights activist who walked along Dr. Martin Luther King in the march for civil rights. Carter’s activism is the offspring of Rustin’s work, continuing to today where groups like SONG, hold a Bayard Rustin convening to train LGBTQ queer folks of color on organizing skills that build on Rustin’s legacy.

During her time with War Resisters League (WRL), Carter centered nonviolence and peace as necessary to create a society free from war, racism, sexism, and human exploitation. She served as a staff member of WRL in their Western Regional and Los Angeles offices from 1969 to 1977, then moved to Durham to staff the Southeast Regional Office from 1982 to 1988. There, she spoke on panels, traveled to military base camps in Germany, and organized a Women’s Peace Walk of 1983.

While millions across the world are mobilizing this Saturday for Land Day, a March 30th, 1976 commemoration to ShutItDownForPalestine with marches, walk-outs, sit-ins, and other forms of direct action, we should consider how these calls to action came to be. Stories like Carter’s who over 40 years ago led an entire month-long march from Durham, N.C. to Seneca, NY, where she called for women to join for a day, a week, or longer, they walked 600 miles in 30 days to reach the Seneca Army Depot, a nuclear weapons storage facility, to stop the deployment of missiles and weapons to Europe. In 1983, Carter marched for a preemptive cease fire.

Southern justice

Carter centered the South. Though she marched north, Carter found roots in Durham. Movement building and social justice in the South was and is critical to Carter’s vision and culminated in this image from 2003 NC Unity Conference – which highlights what is needed to move us forward. This image asks, what could bring us closer to change, if despite our differences, we were on the same boat? Throughout history, the LGBTQ movement did not hold space for people’s identities beyond their sexuality, limiting their ability to bring their whole selves to work remembering that we are all also immigrants, parents, students, workers, church goers – that no matter who we are, all of us have dreams.

Carter understood the need for communities to agree on ways to organize themselves, non-violently. She co-founded Southerners on New Ground (SONG), a home for LGBTQ liberation across all lines of race, class, abilities, age, culture, gender, and sexuality in the South. As a co-founder of SONG, Carter knew that intersectional approaches to justice bring everyone along. SONG asks us to think about the South as a queer and trans person:

What does it mean to be Queer and Trans in…

…the place with the most military bases in the country?

…the part of the country with the most rural space?

…the part of the country with the most churches and church folks in the country?

…the place in the country with the biggest shift in ecological destruction? (Heavy increase) -think Southern Deltas for example

…a place that African-Americans are returning to in large numbers?

…a landscape so powerfully altered by both slavery and the Civil Rights Movement?

Music, arts and culture

Carter also understood that social change isn’t just about marches and legislation. She used music to bring people together, fundraise, educate people on social issues, activate their communities, and help them imagine meaningful change.

War Resisters League collaborated with other Durham groups like the Triangle Area Lesbian Feminists – described in this video by Sherri Zann Rosenthal as a place that helped form lesbian community in the late 70s and forged political and personal spaces for lesbians – to host this “rent party” fundraiser to support rent payments for the shared downtown Durham office space. The show included lesbian feminist comedians like Lea Delaria – a pop-star who displays her activism by funding projects like the Lesbian Bar Project. Like lesbian bar culture, community events like dances and rent parties weren’t just about entertainment; they created shared spaces for lesbians to feel connected to each other, and empower them to strategize collectively. The energy generated by a comedy night could translate into renewed commitment for further political action.

Coalition building

Coalitions are groups who chose to achieve a common goal, and this was super important for the LGBTQ community throughout history, where in some states, it was still outlawed to be queer. It wasn’t until the 1980s that coalitions were building across race and sexuality. Carter helped establish the Triangle Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays in August of 1985 in Durham as a local chapter of the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays (NCBLG).

Just as Land Day is forming an international call with dozens of co-signed organizations, having the backing of a national organization was a tactic that strengthened on-the-ground organizing in Durham. Their motto. “As proud of our gayness as we are of our blackness,” brought Black Lesbian and Gays together to address their efforts to build community and tackle the AIDS crisis, which was for the 1980s, a deadly crisis faced by gay men and their communities.

Celebrating Carter

Today we celebrate Carter. She has been named the “Scientist of Activism,” originally coined in 1999 in a poem by a Duke University student, Lisa Smith, in an issue of a Duke University student publication,Voices.

The poet, Lisa Smith, heard Carter speak on campus, and received her as a balm to a “sticky day in Durham, a head-aching hotness that penetrates all action–so sticky you can almost chew this day like bubble gum.” The title was used as the name of the Duke University exhibition for Carter in 2023 which highlighted her life and contributions to national politics, and for which this article is formed.

Today’s activists can learn from Carter’s approach. Carter’s legacy reminds us that no one stands alone, that we must “work across difference and build the strongest movements possible – grounded in compassion and justice.”

A self-guided tour of the exhibit was written as a zine by Kamau Pope and edited and designed by Kelly Wooten for the Rubenstein Library, Durham, NC, July 2023. This article is pulled from excerpts of the zine and the exhibition. Kamau a.k.a Dirt Road Academic also created a soundscape for the zine.

Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz is a black lesbian archivist and librarian living in NYC. You can find her online at shawntasmithcruz.com.