Charles "Chuck" McDew was an American lifelong activist for racial equality and a former activist of the Civil Rights Movement.
16 Facts About Charles McDew
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Charles Frederick McDew was born in Massillon, Ohio in 1938, to Eva and James McDew.
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Charles McDew was convinced by his elders that he was destined to do something great or good for the "Negro" race.
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Charles McDew referred to himself as a "race baby", an ideal that had never been defined to him by family members, but one that he believed he was expected to define for himself as his future unfolded.
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Charles McDew grew up in a family who talked little about the advancement of civil rights.
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Charles McDew responsibly decided to be the designated driver, but on their way home, they were pulled over by a police officer.
7.
Not knowing how to address an officer in the South different than in the North, Charles McDew answered the officer's questions with a bit too much sass.
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The next day, Charles McDew was on his way to the train station to head back to school The Jim Crow carriage for the black people was filled, so Charles McDew sat down in the white carriage.
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The day he finally got back to South Carolina, Charles McDew was walking to his dorm though a park.
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In March 1960, not long after the first Greensboro sit-ins organized by students in North Carolina, Charles McDew helped to lead a major protest against segregation in Orangeburg.
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The next month, Charles McDew received a letter from Martin Luther King Jr.
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Charles McDew did not want to join because he did not completely agree with the practice of nonviolence.
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Charles McDew was elected because of his obvious drive for the movement.
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Charles McDew remained SNCC's second chairman until 1963 and participated in many sit ins, arrests, protests thereafter.
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Charles McDew died on April 3,2018, of a heart attack while visiting his longtime partner in Massachusetts.
16.
Charles McDew was retired from Metropolitan State University in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he had taught classes in the history of the civil rights movement, African-American history and classes in social and cultural awareness.