Maria Fearing

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Maria Fearing was born in slavery near Gainsville, Alabama in 1838. She worked as a house servant in the home of William and Amanda Winston. After the end of slavery, she learned to read and write at the age of 33. She went on to graduate from the Freedman’s Bureau School in Talladega, Alabama and qualified as a teacher. After a successful career as a teacher in Anniston, she went to Africa in 1894 as a Presbyterian missionary. Rejected by the church due to her age, she initially financed her mission primarily through funds from the sale of her home. For twenty years, she worked in the Congo as a teacher and Bible translator. She also bought many people out of slavery in the Congo. Her most famous achievement was the establishment of the Pantops Home for Girls in Luebo, Congo. She was known as mama wa Mputu, which means “Mother from far away.” After retiring from missionary service in 1915, she taught school in Selma, Alabama. She died in 1937 at the age of 99.

After her death, her fame was spread to many Alabama schoolchildren, both white and black, through the inclusion of her life story in Alabama history textbooks during the turbulent days of the 1960s. She was inducted into the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame in 2000.