Patton’s first steps into the civil rights movement were with the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) where she helped African Americans register to vote with her grandparents.
After her time with the MIA, Patton could be seen working with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) at Tuskegee University and the Lowndes County Freedom Organization.
Following her time at Tuskegee University, she assisted in establishing both anti-war and human rights organizations that furthermore supported the feminist and Black Power movements, as well as communism, the Cuban Revolution, and marxism.
While visiting in Montgomery, prior to the passing of her mother, Patton would often work with her father’s parents in their home to help Black voters prepare for the literacy test when they were getting ready to vote.
They also agreed with Patton’s views on voting rights and partnered with SNCC, as well as created the Black Panther Party for Lowndes County.
Patton's background and experience as a volunteer with Montgomery's boycott activities taught her the importance of analyzing and locating the Tuskegee campus's basis of student strength.
Patton and others, aligned with a militant group of students on campus, aimed to remove the SBG out of the hands of Tuskegee's fraternities and social types.
By 1964, students from all around the country had joined the "Fast for Freedom" food boycott, which was a nationwide effort to link an anti-poverty initiative to the Civil Rights movement's momentum.
Students from all over the country would forgo meals for an evening and contribute the proceeds to help poor Black people in the South and the broader civil rights movement (Michel 2004).
[1] Patton was named archivist at Trenholm State Technical College in 1992 to preserve the Montgomery Pioneer Voting Rights Collection, which included Rufus A. Lewis and Idessa Williams, among other local activists.