- Born
- Died
- Birth nameRosanell Johnson
- Rosanell Eaton was born on April 14, 1921 in near Louisburg, North Carolina, USA. She was married to Golden Eaton. She died on December 8, 2018 in Louisburg, North Carolina, USA.
- SpouseGolden Eaton(1941 - 1963) (his death, 4 children)
- In 1942, at age 21, she went to the county courthouse to register to vote. The white officials told her that she first had to recite the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, a type of literacy test used during the Jim Crow era to prevent black people from voting. To their surprise, she recited it perfectly.
- As a young woman, she farmed for a living. She later did packing work at a factory before taking university classes to become a teacher. She was a phonics teacher and a librarian assistant before retiring at 70, then worked as a substitute teacher and tutored children into her 80s.
- She was an advocate for African American voting rights. She was best known as a lead plaintiff in a North Carolina lawsuit that was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016. It defeated what many civil rights activists described as modern-day efforts to suppress blacks and other minority voters with discriminatory practices at the polls.
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