Dated December 13, 1925, the historic letter from Mobile was short: “Please inform me if you have a local branch of the NAACP. If you do not have a branch here, please inform me what requirements must be met to become an organizer.” With no more than these few words, 22-year-old John LeFlore announced his intention to become a civil rights organizer. The letter set the trailblazer’s course, a consequential life that reshaped twentieth-century Mobile.
LeFlore was born in Mobile in May 1903, the youngest of five children. He never knew his father. A laborer at a railroad depot, Dock LeFlore died before his youngest son’s first birthday. His mother, Clara LeFlore, took in laundry and was a mainstay of the AME Zion Church. Summertime often found her in Clarke County, Mississippi, helping tend to her family’s small sassafras grove. The LeFlore children went to work at an early age. By the time he was six, John LeFlore was selling newspapers along the Mobile waterfront with his brother George. On more than one occasion, he was accosted by white passersby for reading instead of selling.
John LeFlore married schoolyard sweetheart Teah Beck in 1922. In Southern parlance, one might say that LeFlore “married up.” His new father-in-law worked at the post office and helped LeFlore study successfully for the civil service examination. The position afforded some protections from the daily difficulties of working in a segregated society. Still, indignities were ever-present. At the start of their honeymoon, the newlyweds were denied accommodations in a commodious sleeping car that the fastidious LeFlore had reserved. The cars were for white passengers only, the conductor insisted. LeFlore received rougher treatment on a Mobile streetcar sometime thereafter in a scuffle with a white patron over a seat…