Maymie de Mena

Maymie de Mena
1925 visa photograph
Born	Leonie Turpeau (1879-12-10)December 10, 1879 near St. Martinville, Louisiana
Died	October 23, 1953(1953-10-23) (aged 73) Chicago, Illinois
Nationality	American/Nicaraguan/British
Other names	M. L. T. de Mena, Madame de Mena, Maymie Leona Turpeau de Mena, Maymie L. de Mena Turpeau, Maymie Turpeau de Mena, Maymie Ebimber, Maymie Aiken
Occupation	activist
Years active	1925–53
Known for	first woman officer-in-charge of the Universal Negro Improvement Association

Maymie de Mena (December 10, 1879 – October 23, 1953, also known as Maymie Aiken or Madame DeMena Aiken in her later career) was an American-born activist who became one of the highest-ranking officers in the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). She has been credited with keeping the organization alive after Marcus Garvey's conviction for mail fraud and deportation from the United States.

De Mena was born into a Creole family in St. Martin Parish, Louisiana, and obtained her education in the United States before marrying a Nicaraguan and moving to Central America. After a decade in which she raised a daughter and taught school, she divorced, returned to the U.S., and joined the UNIA. Quickly rising in the ranks from a translator, because she was fluent in Spanish, de Mena became one of the leaders of the pan-African movement. She was responsible for increasing the membership of the organization in the Caribbean and Latin America. When Garvey left the U.S. and relocated to Jamaica, de Mena became Garvey's official representative in New York and was the first woman to carry such a high distinction in the organization.

After Garvey moved to London, de Mena, now remarried and styling herself as Madame Aiken, directed her attentions to women's and children's issues in Jamaica. She fought for women's suffrage and birth control rights, while establishing trade organizations to assist working-class women in improving their economic status.

Leonie Turpeau was born on December 10, 1879, on a farm on the eastern banks of Bayou Teche near St. Martinville, St. Martin Parish, Louisiana, to Isabella Hill (née Regis or Reggis) and Michel Turpeau Jr. Her paternal grandfather, Michel Turpeau Sr. was a free man of color from Martinique who had worked as a ship hand and later on the Banker plantation, enabling him to buy a small parcel of land and bring his French Guianese wife, Odeline "Dina", to Louisiana. Turpaeu's mother was the daughter of Maturin Regis, who had been a slave in Virginia, and Carrie Hill a Louisiana Creole woman. The marriage between Michael Jr. and Isabella caused disquiet from its beginnings, as Louisiana society typically did not approve of freedmen marrying former slaves.