Conference on Lived Theology &
Civil Courage: Speakers
Victoria Gray Adams
Victoria Gray Adams' personal motto is "Life shrinks or expands in direct proportion to the courage with which we live it."
In early 1964, Victoria Gray Adams was chosen as one of the three national spokespersons (along with Fannie Lou Hamer and Annie Devine) for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. As a result of the MFDP, the Democratic State Party began integrating its ranks, and the United States’ national political landscape was changed forever as a result of the challenge (carried by herself and other historic Mississippians) of the U.S. Congress of 1965.
After MFDP had finished it most historic work, Victoria Gray Adams lived abroad in Bangkok, Thailand and elsewhere before settling in the state of Virginia. She is the mother of four children and has had a busy career working on community issues and within various organizations. She is the former vice-chairperson of the Petersburg Democratic Committee and Fifth Ward Chairperson of the Voter Education Committee. Although she has retired a number of times from a variety of areas of service, Ms Gray Adams continues serving, enabling, teaching, and building local people.
Victoria Gray Adams is featured in numerous Civil Rights films, documentaries and books including Taylor Branch's Pulitzer Prize winning book, Parting the Waters and his sequel, Pillar of Fire; Kaye Mill's This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer; documentary film series Eyes on the Prize and A Century of Women; and the Academy Award winning film Freedom on My Mind of the recently published Freedom Is a Constant Struggle.
She has received many honors such as the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Award, the Fannie Lou Hamer Humanitarian Award, and the Victoria J Adams EEO/AA Award (an annual award given by the Virginia Fire Services Board). She has been extremely active in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s and active in the United Methodist Church at local and national levels. She has served on the Board of Higher Education and Campus Ministries through the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church, as the Wesley-Westminster Campus Minister at Virginia State University, was appointed to the Virginia Fire Services Board, was elected and served on the national board of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for two terms, was the first woman to run for the U.S. Senate from the state of Mississippi, was one of the three African-American women first to sit on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, and was organizer of the Afro-American Women’s Club in Bangkok, Thailand in 1969.