chosen to lead the movement and CNAC. On January 13, 1962, the city’s Black community held its first civil rights demonstration of the 1960s. Dozens of Black high school students, including Richardson’s daughter Donna, joined a number of young men and women from Baltimore’s Civic Interest Group (CIG) and Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and two members of the SNCC. This was a result of weeks of coordinated planning by Cambridge’s Black youths. It was viewed as the beginning of Cambridge’s civil rights movement. Initially, when Richardson wanted to get involved with the protests, her daughter Donna sent Richardson home until Richardson could guarantee that she would demonstrate nonviolently, as the other individuals had been trained to do. It was a commitment Richardson could not make at the time; therefore, she focused on working with the Black community’s secretive and highly efficient intelligence-sharing network, known as the “grapevine”. Richardson provided information to CIG and SNCC about how Cambridge’s political system operated and the opinions of the Black community. Her daughter acted as a spark in Richardson’s activist journey. Through witnessing various demonstrations in support of her daughter’s activism, Richardson struggled to remain silent in the face of counter-protestors that mocked the non-violent Civil Rights groups. Richardson was determined to involve herself in these social justice issues. At the time, she ran her family’s business, but she decided to become a student again. She attended workshops, and special sessions where activists methodically trained for non-violence, to withstand the hatred of mobs, who often used slurs and demeaning acts to prevent peaceful assembly. This was supposed to be secured by the Constitution. The March and April demonstrations resulted in a large caseload for the local court system where Richardson and other defendants were tried together. Richardson was one of more than 50 people who stood trial for charges of disorderly conduct. This became known as The Penny Trial and demonstrated how the Cambridge movement disrupted white elites’ racial comfort zones. On the issue of violence, Richardson had the outlook that violence is not necessarily the answer, but she does not condemn violence as she believes it is a residue of frustration. She once said that “revolts seemed to be the only thing that America understands, and the nation’s racial problems made revolts unavoidable”. In June 1962, Richardson was asked to help organize the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee (CNAC), the first adult-led affiliate