The Rev. Annie Chambers was ‘the mother of the movement’ supporting Baltimoreans in need

The Rev. Annie Chambers taught her children to be kind and helpful, to look out for those in need. But, most important, she taught them to stand up for themselves and others.

At 10 years old, her daughter Geraldine “Dena” Smith stood among hundreds of adults at a welfare rights rally and defended her family’s right to food stamps. When she finished, Smith called out her mother’s catchphrase: “Revolution!”

More than four decades later, Smith led the same chant at her mother’s memorial service, where dozens of people gathered Wednesday to honor the Baltimore civil rights icon.

“Revolution!” the crowd cried back.

Those who gathered outside Chambers’ home in Dunbar-Broadway spent the evening laughing, reminiscing and coordinating donation drives — all in the spirit of a woman who championed tenants’ rights, opened her doors to the unhoused and wanted to feed even her worst enemy.

“The best way to honor her legacy is to continue the movement,” Ian Schlakman, the co-founder of Chambers’ advocacy group We Stand Up for All, said at the memorial. “She used to say, ‘If your daddy struggles, then so do you.’ And that means that all of us who are foolish enough to think the struggle is over, that we won — it ain’t over.”

Chambers, whom friends called the “mother of the movement,” died July 2 of an infection. She was 84.

She was born Aug. 18, 1941, the second-youngest of 22 children, to a Baptist minister and a laundress, Smith said. Most of her early life in Virginia was spent in church or school, and she dreamed of a career in show business, according to newspaper archives.

She also knew she didn’t want children — but she became pregnant shortly after her family moved to Baltimore when she was 12. She was married to a man 10 years her senior and had 25 children with him.

As far as her father was concerned, “You get pregnant, you get married, you don’t think about it, you don’t discuss it,” Chambers told The Baltimore Sun in 1983.

While her husband worked long hours, she juggled caring for the children. The hardships grew. Her husband became physically abusive, she recounted to The Sun in 1989. She lost two children in a house fire and another in Vietnam. She tried to get her tubes tied, but the operation didn’t work and she became pregnant again.

She was in a dark place, but a priest found her and took her to the hospital, she told The Sun. She got an abortion and then successfully had her tubes tied. The experience strengthened her beliefs in reproductive freedoms.

She divorced her husband and went back to school, which she’d been forced to leave after the sixth grade. She remarried and became involved in local politics.

She launched the Baltimore chapter of the Welfare Rights Organization and joined Operation Life, a similar advocacy group. As the years progressed, so did her local footprint — the People’s Power Assembly, Struggle La Lucha, Ujima People’s Progress Party and New Harvest Ministries. She co-founded We Stand Up for All in 2023.

She fought for herself, too. Smith remembers when a landlord wanted to kick the family out of their home because he considered Chambers a “troublemaker.” Chambers found a city-owned vacant house on Guilford Avenue and decided it would be hers.

With the help of advocate friends, she broke down the door and moved in. She lived there for four-plus decades.

“I would like people to understand and remember that this was the woman that changed a lot of laws that happened in Baltimore City,” Smith said. “This was the woman that was there no matter what time of day.”

During a 1983 campaign for City Council, Chambers told The Sun she felt compelled to run “because somebody has to fight.” She’d been on and off welfare for a decade.

“I know all the welfare policy and law better than any lawyer in the state just by experience,” she told The Sun.

She became an ordained pastor in 1988.

“She knew that that’s what she wanted to do, and she said that was her calling,” Smith said.

Although addressing poverty and welfare issues was the foundation of her activism, Chambers attended demonstrations for other progressive causes. She led crowds fighting for racial justice after the 2020 police killing of George Floyd and called on state leaders to provide more resources for inmates during the pandemic.

As Chambers got older, she didn’t let mobility issues stop her activism.

“She said, ‘If my wheelchair is working, I’ll be there,’” said Andre Powell, an organizer with the People’s Power Assembly. “She said, ‘I don’t have any problem riding through the bus stop and putting this wheelchair on the bus. I’ll be there.’”

Once, her daughter Jessie Rogers tried to convince her to rest when she was sick, but Chambers wouldn’t budge. There was no remedy quite like the feeling of helping another person.

Chambers lived by a few rules. One of the most important was: “Keep your mouth open. Don’t let nobody shut you up.”

Another was that family came first — but hers extended beyond the typical. She always welcomed people into her home, whether they were friends or strangers, neighbors or unhoused people.

Sometimes they were there for help, and other times they were there to party. Chambers loved few things more than throwing on a fancy outfit, cooking tons of food, putting music on and chatting with loved ones.

That’s how they wanted to send her off on Wednesday, too — with balloons and sparklers, colorful outfits paying homage to Africa and music fit for a celebration.

Funeral services are scheduled for 6 p.m. July 24 at New Harvest Ministries.

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