On June 28th in 1942, Dorie Ladner was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. She and her sister, Joyce, became involved early with the civil rights movement, working with Medgar Evers, Vernon Dahmer, Clyde Kennard and others.
She and her sister were kicked out of Jackson State University for their support of the Tougaloo Nine, who integrated the all-white library in downtown Jackson. They became even more active at Tougaloo College. They worked with the Freedom Riders, joining the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
They later worked all day at the SNCC office to help organize the 1963 March on Washington, and Bob Dylan would sing his new songs to Dorie until well into the night. Dylan apparently penned “Outlaw Blues” about her: “I got a girl in Jackson, I ain’t gonna say her name. She’s a brown-skin woman, but I love her just the same.”
Joyce pursued graduate school, earning a doctorate in sociology, becoming the first female president of Howard University. Dorie escorted Fannie Lou Hamer to register to vote and continued her civil rights work, participating in every major civil rights march through 1968. In Washington, D.C., she earned her master’s in social work, counseling emergency room patients, visiting schools and working with the Rape Crisis Center.
The sisters were honored at the Kennedy Center, and Dorie received the Fannie Lou Hamer National Institute on Citizenship and Democracy Humanitarian Award. A decade before her 2024 death, Tougaloo gave her an honorary doctorate. A Mississippi Freedom Trail marker now honors the sisters. mississippitoday.org/2025/06/28/on-…
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