Dr. Maxine Buie Mimms
March 4, 1928-October 8, 2024
Our educational communities have lost an honored trailblazer. Dr. Maxine Mimms, who is widely known in African American circles as both a gifted educator and public speaker, has worked with schools at all levels in both the United States and globally, including consulting with her friend Oprah Winfrey's Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. She taught with the faculty of Fielding Institute, Antioch University and a frequent guest lecturer at St. Augustine College. She is best known, however, for her work as founder of The Evergreen State College's Tacoma Program.
​
Born in Newport News, VA on March 4th,1928, she was the youngest of five children born to Benson and Isabella (DeBerry) Buie who were descendants of African American farmers in North Carolina. As she recalled, “The vocabulary in my house was always ‘improvement’, Negro improvement." Her mother was a teacher who Maxine had watched teach neighbors how to read at their kitchen table. After church each week the family had “formal, wonderful conversations about all kinds of current events." They were encouraged to both agree and disagree but to respect the disagreement. So, as she often said, “I can hear all kinds of opinions, and I never take it personally. As a Black woman born in the South, I reversed everything. I do not allow myself to spiral into negativity.” ​
That the Buie children would go to college was not in doubt. Mimms held a BA degree from Virginia Union University, a master’s degree from Wayne State University in Detroit, where she met and married her husband. Later she completed a PhD in Educational Administration from the Union Graduate School.
​
​Maxine and her husband, Jacque Bush Mimms, headed out west in 1953. Maxine worked as an elementary school teacher in Seattle and Kirkland, Washington. In 1968 she was hired as the Project Director by the Seattle School District for a district-wide teacher training program in Intergroup Relations, financed by the Civil Rights Act. In 1969, Arthur Fletcher, Asst. Secy of the U.S. Dept. of Labor, called on Mimms to join him in Washington, D.C. Maxine moved to Washington with her three school-aged children - Ted, Tonie and Kenneth - and went to work as Special Asst. to the first African-American Director of the Women’s Bureau, Elizabeth Duncan Koontz.
​
Dr. Mimms and family returned to Washington State where she joined the faculty of the new Evergreen State College in Olympia in 1972. She lived in Tacoma which, at the time, had no public four-year institution. Members of Tacoma's Black community felt that she should be teaching in her own community so the many working African American adults and retired military with the GI Bill could complete their four-year degrees. Maxine quickly saw the opportunity offered by Evergreen's curricular flexibility and began enrolling students at the college and teaching them in her home in the early morning and evenings, before and after completing her Olympia responsibilities. Eventually the group was too large for her home. Local community organizations loaned her space to hold classes and other Evergreen faculty joined her. In 1984 the college and the Higher Education Coordinating Board formally approved Evergreen's off-campus program which by that time had 150 graduates with BA degrees and has thrived and expanded its offerings until today.
​
Dr. Mimm’s philosophy has remained steady throughout: "We need to understand that we are all different, but we all have the potential for genius. We must recognize that within our communities there are people who think like Plato, paint like Picasso and meditate like the Buddha. It is the job of education to draw out and recognize the genius in each of us." Her work enriched the whole college when she invited her friend, Odetta, the famed folk singer, to become a visiting faculty at Evergreen in1989. Another friend, poet and writer, Dr. Maya Angelou was also an invited guest, speaking on both the Olympia and Tacoma campuses.
​
Maxine Mimms taught at the college for 20 years until 1992. She never considered herself “in retirement” but rather, “on reassignment“. She spearheaded the Maxine Mimms Academy in Tacoma which provided daily mentoring and classes for middle-school aged students who had been expelled to get them back into the public schools by teaching them how to succeed at curbing their anger, frustration and intellectual lethargy and helping them to identify their skills and motivate them to get the most from their time in school.
​​
Her commitment to culture was shared in her collection of African art and as Producer of Let the Strings Speak at Seattle’s Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute. Her friend and folk singer Odetta taught with her as an artist in residence at the Evergreen Tacoma Program and was an esteemed guest at her 80th Birthday celebration. Maxine traveled frequently to Kenya with African American Kenyan Women Interconnect where she engaged in A Conversation between elders with Sarah Obama, grandmother of Barack Obama.
​
Her adult life was dedicated to the education of populations of students who struggle to gain a scholarly education in traditional settings, she founded the Maxine Mimms Academy in WA state for the benefit of children who were expelled, as a First Place Board Member she guided the pedagogy for homeless children, at Zion Prep Academy for African American children and at the time of her passing she was an Elder of Distinction at Rainier Valley Leadership Academy a K-12 charter school.
At her 90th birthday party, Dr. Mimms was grooving in the middle of a great circle of former students, colleagues, friends and other well-wishers who circled around her singing Stevie Wonder's "Happy Birthday to Ya". She wore a signature hat featuring cowrie shells as a sign that slavery no longer has currency. Tacoma's Mayor, Victoria Woodards, presented her with the key to the city and Governor Jay Inslee proclaimed her a shared treasure.
​
Maxine Mimms is survived by her three children, three granddaughters and one great granddaughter and a large loving community of friends and former students.
​
At her request, there will be a celebration of her life and educational legacy at Evergreen's Tacoma Campus' Founder's Day Celebration on March 8, 2025. Memorial contributions in her honor may be made to the Dr. Maxine Buie Mimms Scholarship that supports students at Evergreen State College Tacoma Campus with an emphasis on low-income and non-traditional students. Donations can be made on-line at (www.evergreen.edu/give/mimms) or by sending a check to The Evergreen State College Foundation (with “Mimms Scholarship” on the memo line) 2700 Evergreen Pkwy NW, Olympia, WA 98505.
Thanks to our Supporters
