Aylene "Mama" Quin was born in Walthall County, worked in Biloxi in 1943 in the laundry department at Keesler Army Airfield after joining the NAACP there and becoming interested in voting, and moved to McComb in 1953 already registered to vote. A local businesswoman and community pillar, she owned the small restaurant South of the Border on Summit Street, which became a center of civil rights activity in McComb as SNCC organizers and volunteers arrived secretly and used passwords to enter. She supported McComb's 1961 voter registration drive and throughout the 1960s was instrumental in sustaining the city's civil rights campaign, helping provide housing, food, and transportation for COFO and SNCC volunteers in Pike County and organizing food and housing committees that raised enough funds to build a community center for the county. Her leadership brought threats against her home and business: police raided her café on August 30, 1964, and her home was bombed on September 20, 1964, destroying the entire front of the house while her two children narrowly escaped death. Local authorities then accused her of bombing her own home, but the next day she flew to Washington, DC, visited the White House, and asked President Lyndon Johnson to send federal troops to McComb after 14 bombed homes. In October 1964, four White men were indicted on charges of illegally using explosives in the attack on her home. On June 17, 1965, Quin and her children traveled to Jackson to protest the election of five congressmen from districts where African Americans were not allowed to vote; after being refused admittance to see Governor Paul Johnson, she protested for voting rights at the side entrance of the Governor's mansion, where her 5-year-old son Anthony Quin struggled with a Mississippi Highway Patrolman who tried to take away his American flag. After the movement, she became a delegate to Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign and lived a relatively quiet life until her death in 2001.
