Lifelong Greenwood resident and longtime educator Mary McSwine, who was active in the civil rights movement in the 1960s, was a “kind and gentle spirit” who cared about people, says daughter Gwendolyn Scaife.
Mrs. McSwine, 92, died Jan. 4 of natural causes at a hospital in North Little Rock, Arkansas.
“She embraced education and felt that could really help empower people to have a better life,” said Scaife, who lives in Carlisle, Arkansas.
Mrs. McSwine was born Oct. 21, 1929, on the outskirts of Greenwood.
She graduated from Money Vocational High School and completed a bachelor’s degree in education in 1960 at Mississippi Vocational College, which is now named Mississippi Valley State University. She added a master’s in the same subject at MVSU in 1981.
In 1954, she married Lacie McSwine, a former educator who worked for school districts in Sunflower and Tallahatchie counties. The two met while Mrs. McSwine worked at a Greenwood diner that Mr. McSwine would regularly frequent, said daughter Vicky McSwine, who lives in DeSoto County.
Mr. McSwine died in 2006.
Mrs. McSwine taught elementary students in the West Tallahatchie School District for 39 years before retiring in 1992. She then worked at the Threadgill Daycare Center in Greenwood for 10 years.
Mrs. McSwine and her husband were vocal advocates for civil rights. Scaife said their work included getting people to register to vote and participating in economic boycotts to pressure Greenwood-area businesses to treat minorities equally and hire minorities.
Scaife, who is Black, said her parents also made the decision to enroll her in W.C. Williams Elementary School, now Threadgill Primary, in the 1960s, when it was still an all-white school.
Although Mr. McSwine was the more involved of the two in the civil rights movement, “my mom was aware of what was going on and supportive of trying to promote better treatment for African Americans,” Scaife said.
“They very much embraced fair and equal treatment and were supporters of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”
Mrs. McSwine was also a dedicated member of New Zion Missionary Baptist Church, where she taught Sunday school and held Bible classes during summer vacation.
“She was faithful; she was consistent. A lady of integrity,” said the Rev. Dr. Calvin Collins, the church’s pastor.
Mrs. McSwine continued to attend church even “when her physical body was saying ‘no,’” Collins said, and she often checked in on her pastor and other church members to see how they were doing.
Samantha Milton, president of the Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School Board, who knew Mrs. McSwine for 26 years, described her as “a sweet, kind and genuine lady.”
Milton also appreciated how Mrs. McSwine led others at the church.
“I just appreciated her calm style; the way she led was so elegant,” she said. “At the same time, she was firm, but in her firmness, she was firm and elegant.”
In addition to her daughters, Mrs. McSwine is survived by a son, James McSwine of Dallas, Texas, as well as two sisters, four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
A funeral service, officiated by Collins, will be held at noon Thursday at New Zion, followed by a burial at Greenwood Memorial Gardens.
- Contact Gerard Edic at 581-7239 or gedic@gwcommonwealth.com.
