Dorie Ann Ladner was a lifelong Civil Rights Activist, beginning with becoming a Freedom Fighter in her youth. Ladner was born on June 28, 1942, in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Her mother, Annie Woullard, was a homemaker, and her father, Eunice Ladner, was a dry cleaner. Ladner’s parents divorced when she was a toddler, and her mother later married a mechanic, William Perryman. Ladner was one of eight children, and in her youth, she attended Priest Elementary School (now the Earl Travillion Learning Center), and Priest Creek Baptist Church, both located in her small all-black community of Palmer’s Crossing.
Her mother always told her to stand up for herself. When Ladner was twelve years old, a white storekeeper in her neighborhood groped her buttocks inappropriately. She repeatedly smacked him with a bag of doughnuts. Her family was close to Vernon Dahmer, the president of the Forrest County NAACP chapter, and assisted Ladner and her sister Joyce in starting their own local NAACP Youth Council. Local activist Clyde Kennard agreed to serve as an advisor.
After graduating from Earl Travillion High School in 1961 as salutatorian, Ladner enrolled in Jackson State College (now University) with her sister Joyce, where the two met Medgar Evers, who became an important mentor and supporter. Sadly, Dahmer and Evers were assassinated and Kennard died shortly after being released from Parchman Prison, which only fueled Ladner’s desire to continue to be involved in the movement. She was expelled from Jackson State University in Mississippi during her freshman year for participating in a protest supporting the nine jailed students from nearby Tougaloo College, who organized a sit-in at an all-white public library. Ladner then enrolled in Tougaloo but dropped out several times to continue to be involved in the Civil Rights Movement.
In 1963, Laudner was serenaded by Bob Dylan in a New York apartment, and he speaks of his love for her in his song “Outlaw Blues” (1965). She worked with Fannie Lou Hamer in the Freedom Summer Project (1964), and with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, (SNCC). She was also a founding member of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), which included the SCLC, NAACP, CORE, and SNCC. Ladner married Hailu Churnet in 1971, and the couple had one daughter, Yodit Churnet, before their marriage later ended in divorce
Ladner obtained her BA in History in 1973 from Tougaloo College in Mississippi, and her MSW from the Howard University School of Social Work, in Washington, D.C. in 1975. She then spent the next 30 years of her professional career working as a clinical social worker, in the Washington D.C. General Emergency room and Psychiatry Department. In 2017, Ladner receive an Honorary Doctorate from the University of the District of Columbia, for her over 50 years as an advocate for equality and social justice.
Throughout her lifetime, Ladner continued to collect histories of participants in the Civil Rights Movement by working with the Martin Luther King Documentation Center, as well as other genealogical societies and organizations. Her life’s work is featured in many documentaries, and in 2011, she was honored with the Humanitarian Award from the Fannie Lou Hamer National Institute of Citizenship and Democracy.
Dorie Ann Lander passed away on March 11, 2024, at the age of 81, in Washington, D.C. Her cause of death was health complications from Covid-19, bronchial obstruction, and colitis.
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Brian Barber, “Freedom Fighter: The Life and Legacy of Ms. Doria Ladner”, Civilrightsteaching.org, 2017, https://www.civilrightsteaching.org/resource/freedom-fighter-dorie-ladner;
Karla Mendez, “The lifelong activism of Dorie Ladner,” blackwomenradicals.com,https://www.blackwomenradicals.com/blog-feed/activism-of-dorie-ladner
