- [Interviewer] Why do you think this photo is so iconic?
- [Gloria] I have no idea.
Maybe because it was a woman pushing away a gun.
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- [Gilbert] I referred to her as a silent warrior and a general.
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She didn't lead you in the wrong direction.
She lead you, I'm going to say, to the path of freedom.
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- [Mayor Jackson-Stanley] She became known through our community as the leader
of our civil rights movement. The mother, if you will.
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- Cambridge, Maryland was segregated, with Race Street dividing the blacks from the whites.
- [Rudolph] They had a restaurant right there called Disneyland.
You couldn't go in there and sit down or get nothing.
- She changed all of that. All of it.
- [Dr. Levy] She was different than most of the other leaders.
She was a middle-aged woman. She was militant. She was savvy. She was from the community.
She led a community-based movement, but because she's also different
than the way we often think of the movement, we don't know that much about her.
- This woman had passion.
She had a plan. Plus, she wasn't alone.
She had people backing her up to say, "You can do it. I've got your back.
I'm with you."
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- When this photo was taken, there had been weeks after weeks
of protest in the streets.
- Hundreds of people were on the other side of that picture, in the background.
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We usually had something going on daily. Demonstrations, marches, picketing.
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When we were out that day, we heard what I thought were bullets,
and I was crossing to find out what had happened.
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- She defied the white power structure here. They had always expected
the black leaders to hold the peace, hold the order.
They're saying, "Okay, if you guys agree to call off your protest, we'll negotiate with you."
And she said, "No, you're not going to negotiate with us
unless we're on the streets, unless we're marching."
- Oh, I didn't believe in non-violence, and people were coming,
shooting into your houses.
- Gloria worked the street, but she didn't work just Pine Street.
Remember, she was all over the place.
She was in Washington. She went to New York.
She went down south.
Women were definitely behind her, so she could take the lead,
and the men saw the strength in her and followed her.
- I think as much was achieved there as, say, in Birmingham,
which gets a lot more press, and media, and historical attention.
- When she spoke, people knew that she meant business and she was in charge.
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- It was just people whose lives were at stake and in danger,
and it was a life and death situation almost every day.
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