Lillie May Carroll Jackson (May 25, 1889 – July 5, 1975), pioneer civil rights activist, organizer of the Baltimore branch of the NAACP. Invariably known as "Dr. Lillie", "Ma Jackson", and the "mother of the civil rights movement", Lillie May Carroll Jackson pioneered the tactic of non-violent resistance to racial segregation used by Martin Luther King Jr. and others during the early civil rights movement. Early life Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Lillie May Carroll Jackson was the seventh child of Methodist Minister Charles Henry Carroll (who claimed descent from Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence) and Amanda Bowen Carroll who was said to be the granddaughter of a free-born African chief named John Bowen. After completing her public school education and graduating from the Colored High School and Normal School in 1909, Jackson became a second-grade teacher at the old Biddle Street School. Family history Jackson grew up singing soprano in the choir of the Sharp Street Methodist Church. On an occasion when the church was used to show religious motion pictures, she met Methodist evangelist Keiffer Albert Jackson of Carrollton, Mississippi. A promoter of religious films, Jackson requested that she sing a song entitled "The Holy City". Years later, in 1910, they were married. Once they were married they began to travel together, she sang while the silent pictures were shown and lectured wherever he showed his films. Upon the arrival of their first child, the Jackson family settled in Baltimore. In addition to her oldest child, Virginia, Mrs. Jackson gave birth to two other girls, Juanita Elizabeth (born January 2, 1913) and Marion, followed by one son, Bowen Keiffer. During 1918 Jackson experienced a life changing crisis. She underwent emergency surgery for mastoiditis. The procedure was so extensive her doctor told her that he "had removed more decayed bone from her head than he thought possible to survive". As a result, the right side of her face was permanently disfigured. Most photos of her henceforth were taken from the left side to conceal her scars. Jackson was literally the mother of the civil rights movement. Her daughter Juanita, the first African-American woman to practice law in Maryland, married Clarence Mitchell Jr. September 7, 1938. He was the NAACP’s chief Washington lobbyist from 1950 to 1978 and became known as the "101st U.S. Senator." Mitchell's brother Parren Mitchell was the first African-American congressman from