Democracy Dies in Darkness

Gloria Richardson, fiery civil rights activist in Maryland showdown, dies at 99

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July 16, 2021 at 6:40 p.m. EDT
Gloria Richardson, head of the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee, pushes a National Guard member’s rifle aside in 1963. (AP)

Gloria Richardson, a firebrand civil rights activist who drew national attention in the early 1960s in a showdown on Maryland’s Eastern Shore that presaged the Black Power movement and led to a year-long imposition of martial law, died July 15 at her home in Manhattan. She was 99.

Her daughter Tamara Richardson confirmed the death but did not give a cause.