Freddie Mae Gautier (1930-2001) was an influential civil rights and community activist in Seattle from the 1960s through the 1990s. Gautier's early activism in the civil rights movement introduced her to movement leaders such as Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. During the late 1950s-early 1960s, she marched alongside King and other leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in the South. During the same period, she worked in Seattle as a matron in the King County Sheriff’s office from 1953 to 1967, counseling juvenile crime victims. Gautier went on to co-found the local chapter of SCLC, and became the Western Vice President of the organization. In 1963, Gautier and other local women founded the Benefit Guild, an auxiliary to the SCLC. The organization worked to improve social and economic conditions in the Black community, raising money to sponsor community programs, and fund voter registration, a children’s clinic, and scholarships for Black students.

In the 1970s, Gautier served with the group Black Action for Democracy (BAD), worked as a community organizer for the Central Area Motivation Program (CAMP), and became director of the Model Cities Group Home Program, which provided homes for troubled youth. In the late 1970s, Gautier successfully fought to bring the new Seattle Tennis Center to the Central Area, and later worked to bring the nearby Martin Luther King Memorial to fruition. Gautier earned a reputation as an astute political advisor; she counseled Rev. Jesse Jackson on his business ventures in the 1980s, and worked to elect Seattle's first Black mayor, Norm Rice. She also owned local small businesses, and managed the records section for the Seattle Municipal Court until her retirement in 1997.

This photo shows Freddie Mae Gautier in September 1990, when she received the Isabel Colman Pierce Award for excellence in community service, given by the Seattle-King County YWCA.

Caption information source: Cobbins-Modica, Q. (2014, August 26) Freddie Mae Hurd Gautier (1930–2001). Retrieved from https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/gautier-freddie-mae-hurd-1930-2001/
Caption information source: "Civil-rights pioneer is dead at 71" by Peggy Andersen, Dec 16, 2001 retrieved at https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=20011216&slug=gautier16m
Caption information source: "Friends agree, Gautier puts her hopes Where Her Heart is" by Kerry Godes, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 11, 1990, B1