Editor’s Note: This is the official obituary of Dr. Maxine Buie Mimms as drafted and submitted by the family.
Sunrise: March 4, 1928 – Sunset: October 8, 2024
Dr. Maxine Buie Mimms passed into eternity on October 8, 2024, in Auburn, WA, under the loving care of family and friends. She was born on March 4, 1928, in Newport News, Virginia, the youngest of five siblings. Her parents, Benson Ebenezer and Isabella DeBerry Buie, were proponents of Marcus Garvey’s philosophies in support of post-enslavement self-actualization. She attended Booker T. Washington grade school and graduated with highest honors from Huntington High School in 1946. She earned her B.A. from Virginia Union University and her Ph.D. in educational administration from Union Graduate School in San Francisco. Her 96-year journey, based in education and social justice, was globally expansive.
Dr. Mimms, as she is professionally and affectionately known, dedicated her life to the education of African American students from PreK to graduate degrees, and those who align with their experiences. In addition to Evergreen, she was on the faculty of Fielding Institute, Union Graduate School, Antioch University, and a visiting professor at St. Augustine College. She also established the Zion Prep Academy Teacher Training Cohort.
Her life’s journey took her to Detroit, along with her husband Jacque Mimms, where she was a social worker. When they relocated to Seattle in 1953, she followed her mother’s love of teaching as Seattle Public Schools’ first contracted African American elementary teacher, where she taught 4th and 5th grade at Leschi Elementary. Along with her colleague, the late Ora Franklin, they used their positions to increase the number of Black teachers by recruiting them from Historically Black Colleges and Universities. In 1961, her most non-traditional student was Jimi Hendrix, who taught his classmates a song to help them remember the names of continents. She transferred to Kirkland Public Schools and, in 1964, returned to Seattle Public Schools Administration. She relocated to Washington, D.C., in 1969 and worked in President Richard Nixon’s administration as Special Assistant to Elizabeth Koontz, Director of the Women’s Bureau, Department of Labor.
Her dedication to education brought her back to Washington state, where in 1972, Dr. Mimms joined the faculty of Evergreen State College in Olympia. Under her leadership, the nationally recognized Tacoma Hilltop campus was established in 1982 to meet the educational needs of adult African American learners. Many veterans discharged from nearby military bases benefitted from their degrees. The principles of the newly established Tacoma campus, based on “Enter to Learn, Depart to Serve,” resonate as foundational to how she lived and what makes this campus popular among African Americans and other adults seeking higher education. The last chapter of her active life demonstrates her high regard for culture, in her production of Let the Strings Speak, a musical performance at the Langston Hughes Performing Institute in Seattle. This performance brought together the rhythms of African drums and classical string instruments. She was recognized by the Seattle Opera as a sustained season ticket holder for more than 30 years.
She considered Tacoma home, where she received the Key to the City. She also resided in Bellevue and lived her last decades in her iconic art gallery and retreat home in Kamilche, adjacent to the Squaxin Tribe in South Salish Sea on Oyster Bay. Besides her residences, home for her was the entire Washington I-5 corridor. At the time of her transition, she was active every day and passed her baton across generations as Elder of Distinction for African Kenyan Women Cultural Reconnection, Africatown Community Land Trust, Rainier Valley Leadership Academy, First Place Imani Village, and Life Enrichment Community Conversations. Her lifelong activism and leadership were widely recognized by numerous awards, including in 2001, the first annual Sustainable Community Outstanding Leadership Award. Her image has been etched into a building on 23rd and Union in the heart of Seattle’s Africatown, a regrowth of the Black community. Her travels to Kenya placed her in a “Conversation Between Elders” at the Kogelo home of Sarah Obama, the grandmother of President Barack Obama.
She leaves to sustain her legacy three children; Theodore (Tafelala), Tonie and Kenneth (Gwen), three grandchildren Elyse, Chantel, Lovell great-grandchildren Jenesis and Lillia, relatives, and all who know her as mentor, professor, and friend.
A private family funeral was held on October 9 at the Scott Funeral Home in Tacoma. A public celebration will honor her life in March 2025 at Evergreen College Tacoma.
Condolences can be sent to Scott Funeral Home – 1215 Martin Luther King Jr Way, Tacoma, Washington 98405.
