To: President Donald Trump

Nominate Amelia Boynton Robinson for a Presidential Medal of Freedom

Nominate Mrs. Amelia Boynton Robinson, 103, to receive a 2015 Presidential Medal of Freedom. Your support will urge President Barack H. Obama to bestow this award upon her. Beaten and left to die on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on “Bloody Sunday,” March 7, 1965, she lived and paved the way for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Please Sign Petition By March 16, 2015.

Why is this important?

Please join the National Nominating Committee in supporting Mrs. Amelia Boynton Robinson for a 2015 Presidential Medal of Freedom. Help us to encourage President Barack Obama to accept this moment in history and select her for this esteemed Award.

On March 7, 1965, Amelia Boynton was beaten, knocked unconscious and left to die on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama in what has become known as “Bloody Sunday.” At 103, she is still a champion for freedom, justice and equality.

Born on August 18, 1911, one of ten children of George and Anna Hicks Platts in Savannah, Georgia, young Amelia, at age 10, began her life-long quest for voting rights as a vehicle to equality. She assisted her mother in going door-to-door by horse and buggy in 1921 to encourage Blacks to vote.

After graduating from Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in 1927, she began a career with the United States Department of Agriculture in 1929. Later, she became reacquainted with fellow Tuskegee graduate, S.W. Boynton, whom she subsequently married. Together, they began helping to lay the groundwork in the 1930’s for the now famous Selma-to-Montgomery March, of which “Bloody Sunday” was a part, and which ultimately led to the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. A part of Amelia’s role in the movement is immortalized in the recent Oscar-nominated movie “Selma,” where she is portrayed by Lorraine Toussaint.

Because of the pivotal work that she performed in securing the right to vote for Blacks in the United States, our nominee, a resident of Tuskegee, Alabama since 1976, is known as the “Matriarch of the Voting Rights Movement.” Please sign this petition and join our Committee in nominating Mrs. Amelia Boynton Robinson, and in urging President Barack Obama to name her as a recipient for a 2015 Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Thank you for your support.

National Nominating Committee

Post Office Box 941

Tuskegee Institute, Alabama 36087

Dr. Elaine C. Harrington, Chair
Atty. Lateefah Muhammad, Co-Chair