Mae Bertha Carter (January 13, 1923 – April 28, 1999) was an activist during the Civil Rights Movement from Drew, Mississippi.
[2] In Sunflower County she enrolled 7 of her 13 children in schools previously reserved for Whites in the fall of 1965.
She continued to keep her children in the schools even though a person fired bullets into her house, and even though her landlord evicted her and her family.
Carter and Marian Wright Edelman, a lawyer who worked for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., sued the Drew School District to challenge the Mississippi "freedom of choice" law.
[4] Mae Bertha Carter credits a woman named Hattie Leggett with being the person who most influenced her life.