By Jeanette Jones, Independent Historian
Mamie McClendon was born in 1880. Little is known of her early life. In 1914 at age 34, she married and became the second wife to Newton DeKalb Goodwin. They resided at 3438 W. Beach Avenue in Gulfport, Mississippi. Mr. Goodwin worked as a dairyman. The house no longer exists as much of the area was destroyed by hurricane Katrina.
Mamie is listed in the January 1919 issue of The Suffragist magazine as the Mississippi State Chair of the National Woman's Party. She was also appointed by the governor of the state as a commission member of the Southern Law and Order Commission as reported by the Nashville Tennessean newspaper, December 6, 1922. The Commission offered an alternative approach to lynching in race relations, but remained a staunch supporter of Jim Crow segregation in this period.
She died in 1930 at age 50. Her husband passed away one year after her death.