The legacy of an African American woman's perseverance against discrimination lives on today.

Mollie Marshbanks Chism wore her voting dress proudly at a family reunion in 1974.

Chism lived during racial segregation in Colt, Arkansas.

One of her 13 children, was the father of our WFMJ/WBCB Community Relations Director Madonna Chism Pinkard. Pinkard was born and raised in Youngstown.

 

"In 1976, Mama Mollie, I didn't know it then, but she was dying and she called all of us to the bedroom and she says I just want to tell  y'alls children that when you get an opportunity to vote I want ya'll to vote. I want y'all children to vote because they threw rocks at me and they spit on me but I's went anyway. I didn't understand but now I do," says Mollie's granddaughter Madonna Chism Pinkard.

She was one of the pioneers who got to vote for the first time not just for women but for African American women.

 

Chism was born in 1888 and died in 1976.