Fikes, Bettie Mae (1948– )

US musician and civil-rights activist. She received a three-week jail sentence for singing during the Selma, Alabama, voting-rights struggle in 1963, and subsequently became a music leader for the civil-rights movement.

In May 1998 she appeared at Carnegie Hall, and performed with folk singers Peter, Paul, and Mary at the Newport Folk Festival. In the 1990s she toured with the Freedom Singers – a group that emerged from the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s.

She was born in Selma, Alabama, and began singing at the age of four.