Pictured are Hattie "Mama" Porter and her son, activist Alfred Porter Jr, president of Black on Black Crime Inc Her son's picture is shown in the expended view of this post an in latest news by clicking on the title of this articleVisitation begins at 1pm and will be followed by a service at 2:30pm. Pastor Tamar Gray, who leads the church, will officiate and deliver the eulogy.
Porter was 85-years-old.
Services are entrusted to Gaines Funeral Home in Cleveland.
"Mama Porter," as Porter was called by people who loved her and fondly knew her, was an icon among grassroots community activists in the Cleveland area She was the mother of community activist Alfred Porter Jr. , president of Black on Black Crime Inc and a community organizer. She earned the title "Mama Porter" not only because of her activism around voting rights and on the frontlines during excessive force and women's rights and other community protests, but also due to her wisdom on an array of issues and her dedication to the church, her family, and the community.
With Alfred as her only child and as a single parent struggling to make ends meet, she was an active parent during the Cleveland schools desegregation era of the 1980s and 1990s, and she fought for Black children. She was a former chair of the School Community Council (SCC), a parental involvement and watch-dog organization mandated by then U.S. District Court Judge Frank J. Battisti under the now defunct desegregation court order in Reed v Rhodes, the longstanding schools desegregation case that ended in 1998 and was substituted with mayoral control of Cleveland's public school district. And in that role with the SCC she worked with the late Dr. James M. Coleman, then an assistant superintendent and a member of the Cleveland schools desegregation team, never hesitating to stand up for parents and Black children when others sought to violate the remedial provisions of the court order.
Mama Porter was born on July 4, 1936 to the late Calvin Boyd Sr. and Lucille Boyd in the deep south in Pickensville, Alabama, which is divided by the Tom Bigby River and shares its western border with the Mississippi state line. She had three siblings, Calvin Boyd, Jr., Paula Maxine Dupree Boyd, and Willie Anne Garrett, all of whom preceded her in death. She was raised in the small town of Pickensville, which at that time had about 150 residents.
After graduating from high school she attended Morris Brown College in Atlanta Georgia and later worked at Lincoln University. She married and relocated to Chicago, Illinois as part of the Great Migration when more than six million African Americans from rural towns like Pickensville moved to large Northern states in urban areas in the hope of finding jobs and a better life.
Fleeing domestic violence, Mama Porter left Chicago and she and son Alfred moved to Cleveland in 1970, and Cleveland became their longtime home. She was employed by the Cleveland Metropolitan School District as an office assistant and later worked for the United Way. She was a tireless advocate for civil and human rights, not only as a parent deeply involved during the Cleveland schools desegregation period but throughout her adult life, and until illness slowed her down.
In addition to her son Alfred Porter Jr, Mama Porter will be missed by so many, including her nephew, Donald Depree Jr., cousins Ann Barclay, Scottie Barclay, Bill Barclay, and Bonnie Barclay, community activists, members of the church congregation at Grace Communion Church in Cleveland where she is a member, and a host of friends and associates.
By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor. Coleman is a seasoned Black Cleveland journalist who trained at the Call and Post Newspaper for 17 years and an experienced investigative and political reporter. She is the most read independent journalist in Ohio per Alexa.com
