Annie Mae Bankhead (1904–1989)

Annie Mae Bankhead was a longtime civic and civil rights activist whose efforts made her a pillar of College Station (Pulaski County), an unincorporated community southeast of Little Rock (Pulaski County). Widely recognized for her decades of volunteer efforts, she was awarded the National Council of Women’s Woman of Conscience Award in 1969.  

Annie Mae Bankhead was born on December 16, 1904, in Brooksville, Mississippi.  

Little is known about her parents or family before she moved with them to College Station in 1926. She married R. B. Bankhead a few years after she arrived in College Station; they had three sons and a daughter, and they later divorced. 

She would spend the rest of her life in the small community, working to fulfill the lessons of her parents, whose principle of “make everywhere you live a better place” fueled Bankhead’s decades-long career as an activist. One newspaper termed her a “one woman community agency.” 

Her wide-ranging efforts began almost as soon as she arrived in College Station and would ultimately encompass everything from helping to bring electricity, gas, running water, and telephone service to her long-neglected community to helping get the roads paved. She also worked to have the bars closed on the weekends after the community had developed a “shady Saturday night reputation.”  

Beginning in the early1940s, she was active in the fledgling civil rights movement, encouraging local African Americans to register to vote. She organized the first Young People’s Church. She helped establish a credit union, the YMCA, and a health clinic in College Station, and in the early 1960s, she organized the Progressive League of College Station, which played an important role in getting utilities for the town. In 1965, she led the effort to start a Head Start program in town, and she helped secure fire protection and the accompanying equipment for the community while also being active in the effort to rehabilitate the community’s housing. Alongside her community efforts, Bankhead worked in jobs ranging from pottery factory worker to domestic worker to hospital staff member, while also working as a laundress and taking in sewing. She also raised her four children, all of whom went to college. 

She was appointed to the War on Poverty Advisory Committee by President Lyndon B. Johnson, serving as the state’s representative in 1966. She was a presidential elector for Jimmy Carter in 1976, and she served as the community representative for the Office of Economic Opportunity.  

In 1969, Bankhead received the Woman of Conscience Award given by National Council of Women of the United States, a federation of women’s clubs from around the country. In bestowing the award, council president Belle S. Spafford called Bankhead “an outstanding example of how a woman of courage and vision can articulate the needs of her community and can draw upon resources, both private and government, to help meet those needs.” According to one newspaper report, the selection committee, which included Coretta Scott King and Margaret Mead, was “impressed with the vast number of changes she had brought about in her community.” Upon receiving the award, she emphasized that poverty related to more than financial wealth: “I don’t see poverty as only a lack of money. Pride plays a great part in eliminating poverty. You can have a lot of money in the pocket and if you have no pride you can still be poverty-stricken.” 

Annie Mae Bankhead Drive near the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport was named in her honor in 1980. In 1987, Newsweek magazine named Bankhead one of America’s Unsung Heroes. She was awarded the National Brotherhood and Humanitarian Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews, as well as the Distinguished Citizens Award given by the Governor’s Office of Volunteerism and KARK-TV. In 1971, she was named Woman of the Year by the Arkansas Democrat, and in 1984, she was named Senior Peacemaker of Arkansas by the Arkansas Peace Center.  

Bankhead died on January 28, 1989.  

For additional information:
Kirk, John. “African American Women Activists—Annie Mae Bankhead.” KUAR, Little Rock Public Radio, January 31, 2016. https://www.ualrpublicradio.org/2016-01-31/african-american-women-activists-annie-mae-bankhead (accessed January 23, 2025).  

Mitchell, Jeff. “Annie Mae Bankhead Defends EOA [Economic Opportunity Agency].” ArchiveGrid, October 22, 1985. https://researchworks.oclc.org/archivegrid/data/47260622 (accessed January 23, 2025).  

Shaw, Robert. “Negro Woman Wins Praise.” Baxter Bulletin, December 11, 1969. https://www.newspapers.com/article/baxter-bulletin-annie-mae-bankhead-the/118329569/ (accessed January 23, 2025).  

William H. Pruden III
Ravenscroft School 

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