Unita Blackwell was born the daughter of sharecropping parents in Coahoma County, Mississippi on March 18, 1933. She worked throughout the civil rights era urging and recruiting blacks to register to vote, while holding positions in numerous organizations to fight for black civil rights in the United States.
Blackwell began her education by attending a school in West Helena, Arkansas, because of the lack of educational opportunities for African Americans in Mississippi. She received an eighth grade education and then joined her parents as sharecroppers. In the early 1960s, with determination and willfulness, she chopped cotton for $3 per day while she patiently began her work in civil rights.
By 1964, Blackwell was teaching Sunday School at a church. When the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) visited her hometown of Mayersville, Mississippi, Blackwell signed up to be a field worker. Her assignment was to persuade her neighbors to register and vote.
The very same year, Blackwell became a prominent participant in Freedom Summer, the massive effort by civil rights activists to register black voters across the state. She also was selected a Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) delegate and traveled with other delegates to the Democratic National Convention in New Jersey to plead its case to be seated to represent Mississippi. Although the Convention failed to accommodate the MFDP, Blackwell continued her civil rights work. By 1967 she was a Community Development Specialist in Mississippi for the National Council of Negro Women.