Draft:Mary McClendon


 * NDWA
 * "The Help" movie
 * Book interview
 * Syndicated profile by Smyth
 * Freep 2015
 * HWO 1975 Freep profile
 * HWO 1972 Freep by May
 * 1977 Freep longform
 * 1970 Freep
 * Syndicated profile by Glaser
 * Obamna

Mary Upshaw McClendon (October 3, 1922 – February 16, 2015 ) was an African American domestic worker and labor rights activist from Detroit.

Early life
McClendon was born on October 22, 1922 in Andalusia, Alabama, to a family with four other children. Beginning in her youth, she preformed domestic work with her mother. She graduated from Covington County training high school in 1944. In 1955, she moved to Detroit from her then-current residence of Red Level, Alabama to join her cousin, a doctor, and, outside of the Jim Crow South, was able to vote for the first time, which she described as "like a flash of freedom."