On March 27, 1961, Ethel Sawyer was arrested for participating in a sit-in at the Jackson Public library in what would be called the Tougaloo Nine.
She was mentored along with eight other Tougaloo College students by NAACP organizer Medgar Evers and trained to sustain provocation.
[2] In 1964, as a graduate student in the former Sociology department at Washington University in St. Louis, Sawyer studied a group of Black lesbians who congregated at a bar in The Ville, St.
Her father worked a freight handler for Union Pacific Railroad, and she was the first member of her family to attend college.
[8] In 2023, St. Louis Board of Aldermen approved a resolution from Shameem Clark Hubbard honoring Ms. Ethel Sawyer for contributions to civil rights and her community.