Mary Lillian Andrews: A Pioneer of Civil Rights in San Antonio (1942–1993)

Mary Lillian Andrews, civil rights activist, was born in San Antonio, Texas, on November 6, 1942, to Charles Clifton Andrews and Smithie Douglas (Sutton) Andrews. Her father, a graduate of Howard University’s School of Medicine, owned a medical practice in San Antonio. Her mother, a teacher, eventually received a master’s degree from Our Lady of the Lake College (now University). Her maternal grandparents, Samuel Sutton, an educator and school principal, and Lillian (Smith) Sutton, were prominent members of San Antonio’s African American community. They owned several businesses, including a skating rink and a funeral home, and hosted notable guests, such as Mary McLeod Bethune and Thurgood Marshall. Her grandfather taught at one of the city’s first Black high schools and, later, became a principal. Many of Mary Andrews’s mother’s siblings achieved their own success. John Sutton studied agricultural science under George Washington Carver. Carrie Sutton received a medical degree from Howard University. Garlington Jerome Sutton represented San Antonio in the state legislature. Alexander Carver Sutton became a president of the Texas branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Percy Sutton served with the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II and then became a Manhattan Borough president in New York City.  

The Andrews family was active in the community, and their names frequently appeared in the San Antonio Register, one of the city’s early Black newspapers. As a child, Mary Andrews performed in community ballets and music recitals, modeled in local fashion shows, and hosted social events with family members and friends. She also belonged to the San Antonio chapter of Jack and Jill of America, an organization dedicated to promoting young leadership in African American communities.

Andrews was most active in San Antonio’s NAACP Youth Council. Formed as counterparts to the larger NAACP organization, local youth councils opened membership to students and young adults across the country, and they enabled young people to organize campaigns that spoke directly to their concerns. Andrews served as her school’s representative to the NAACP Youth Council as a student at Dunbar Junior School and Incarnate Word High School. In 1959 she attended the organization’s fiftieth anniversary conference in New York City as a San Antonio delegate. That year, Andrews graduated from high school and began studies at Our Lady of the Lake College in San Antonio. During her freshman year, she served as president of the local NAACP Youth Council, and she led the group in challenging local segregation practices.

In March 1960 Andrews sent letters (dated March 7, 1960) to several of San Antonio’s downtown businesses that operated lunch counters, including S. H. Kress and Company, Joske’s, and F. W. Woolworth Company. While a handful of lunch counters in San Antonio and other Texas cities had started the process of desegregation in the 1950s—lunch counters at all H-E-B grocery stores were integrated by 1952 in Corpus Christi, for example—there were many establishments that continued to refuse service to Black customers. In Andrews’s letters, which received coverage in newspapers across the state, she drew attention to ongoing segregation in each establishment and urged the businesses to integrate: “Help the youth of San Antonio realize that the principles stated in the Holy Bible and the Constitution of the United States can be a living reality in San Antonio by abolishing this discriminatory practice in your store.”

Inspired by the recent student sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina, and in other Southern cities, Andrews and the NAACP Youth Council called on businesses to respond to the letter or to expect demonstrations. On Sunday, March 13, 1960, the group organized a rally at Second Baptist Church, which drew up to 1,500 attendees. At the meeting, they established a deadline for businesses to respond to the letters and made plans for sit-ins. According to newspaper coverage, almost 500 activists were prepared to engage in demonstrations if the NAACP Youth Council did not receive favorable responses by March 17. Following the rally, the San Antonio Council of Churches quickly organized a meeting with San Antonio business leaders. Anticipating sit-in demonstrations, this group of religious leaders had quietly met with city officials the previous month. Now, with increasing pressure from the NAACP, they acted swiftly to resolve the conflict. On the night of March 15, just ahead of the Youth Council’s deadline, the groups came to a tentative agreement. In a joint statement issued to the public, several stores agreed to adopt “a quiet and orderly policy of no discrimination at their eating facilities.” On March 16, Black patrons received service at several San Antonio lunch counters. Richard Hunt, a Black army medic who went on to become a prominent sculptor, recalled eating at Woolworth’s with no incident. Neisner’s, S. H. Kress, H. L. Green’s, Grant’s, McCrory’s, and Sommers Drug stores also desegregated their lunch counters that day. News reports credited San Antonio as the first Southern city to desegregate at dining facilities as a “community effort” in the midst of sit-downs across the U.S. A few days later, when baseball great and civil rights activist Jackie Robinson spoke at an interfaith banquet in San Antonio, he stated that the city’s lunch counter desegregation was “a story that should be told around the world.” Mary Andrews’s efforts regarding desegregation in San Antonio received national coverage in such publications as the New York Times and Jet magazine.

While many San Antonio establishments peacefully desegregated, others refused to integrate their lunch counters and dining halls. In addition to the city’s larger hotel restaurants, Joske’s initially refused to change its policy. The company’s vice president, J. H. Morse, wrote to Andrews in early April and stated, “If a change in community custom and practice in all public restaurants throughout our city results from the conferences now in progress, Joske’s will observe such change.” After public pressure mounted, the store agreed to serve Black customers at the buffet in the basement, but not in the two upstairs dining facilities. Following this decision, demonstrators began picketing outside the store, and the local NAACP organized a boycott. Others, including Andrews’s mother and other members of her family, initiated their own protests of Joske’s policy by attempting to dine in the store’s Camellia Room restaurant. Scattered protests continued throughout the spring, leading Joske’s to temporarily close all of its dining facilities. In addition to these obstacles, a few acts of violence and intimidation accompanied the desegregation efforts. For instance, on the evening of March 16, the day that local stores announced their integration, authorities discovered a burning cross in Travis Park. The NAACP Youth Council also identified other public spaces that had yet to integrate. The group continued to meet throughout the spring, and they planned a campaign to desegregate local churches. As president of the local NAACP Youth Council, Andrews also wrote a letter to the interracial committee of the Community Welfare Council regarding the issue of integrating area churches. While it is unclear whether or not this effort was successful, the group’s continued activities testify to the persistence of segregation in various social and commercial segments of San Antonio.

Following the protests of the spring and summer of 1960, Andrews experienced several life changes. Land records indicate that her parents had separated a few years earlier, and in July 1960 her mother accepted a teaching position in Oakland, California. Andrews traveled to California in August to spend time with her mother and her younger brother Samuel, after which she moved to Des Moines, Iowa, to complete her bachelor’s degree at Drake University. There, she joined the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and participated in the school’s fencing club.

After graduating from college, Mary Andrews moved to the Bay Area in California to work for the San Francisco Economic Opportunity Council. On October 5, 1968, she married Jerry Glenn Anderson at the Presidio Officer’s Club in San Francisco. They had one son, Lance, who died at a young age. The couple eventually divorced, and Andrews relocated to Harrison, New York, where she managed a research facility for IBM and married Melvin Riley. She remained in New York until the 1990s, when she was diagnosed with cancer. She returned to San Antonio to spend her final months with family and died there on September 3, 1993. Her funeral service was held at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, and she was buried in Sunset Memorial Park.

Andrews’s role in desegregating San Antonio’s lunch counters received renewed attention after her death. After closing in 1997, the Woolworth Building, located directly across from the Alamo, became home to various businesses tailored to downtown tourists. When plans to redevelop the area in 2017 placed the historic site in jeopardy, local organizations, including the San Antonio Conservation Society, launched a campaign to preserve the building. They specifically called attention to its significance to the city’s civil rights history and highlighted Andrews’s role in this process. Her great-niece, Taylor Andrews, took part in this effort and read her great-aunt’s historic letter at the organization’s symposium in 2020. In May 2021, in response to public concern, the Bexar County Commissioners Court allocated funds to preserve the Woolworth Building. While the building will be part of the planned Alamo Museum, the lobby will house free public exhibits dedicated to San Antonio’s civil rights history.