About a decade ago, a woman Bishop Antonio Palmer had never met walked into his new Odenton restaurant, Kingdom Kafe & Lounge, and struck up a conversation.

Palmer remembered Christine Davenport saying she wanted to support Black-owned businesses. He didn’t know she would change his life and inspire him to do the same for others.

“We just got to talking,” said Palmer, whose restaurant has since closed. “At that time, I wasn’t too familiar with civic engagement. She was the one who really encouraged me to use my voice to further the cause of communities who are pretty much marginalized and lend some wisdom, some input, insight to elected officials.”

She inspired him to start the nonprofit Kingdom Kare, which runs about 14 programs to support communities in west Anne Arundel County and Annapolis on issues such as violence prevention, support for teen parents and voter participation. He works closely with elected officials and his impact is felt far beyond his church.

Palmer wasn’t alone in drawing inspiration from Davenport. She encouraged Black candidates to run for office and supported their campaigns. Davenport also started several civic organizations and served on the boards of established groups, such as the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Palmer and others are now looking back on the impact Davenport had on their lives. The career educator and quiet civic force in Anne Arundel County died Monday of a heart attack, according to her daughter. She was 75.

“Whenever you saw something positive that happened, Christine Davenport was a part of it,” said longtime civil rights activist Carl Snowden, a convener of the Caucus of African American Leaders of Anne Arundel County — another organization Davenport served in.

Davenport’s story begins in the small town of Kingstree, South Carolina, where she was the second of four children born to Van Wright and Isabel Scott.

Her father was a farmer, carpenter, plumber, electrician and an activist, who prioritized sending all four of his children to college in the late ’60s and ’70s, Davenport’s daughter, Ashleigh, said. Her mother was a housewife.

“Growing up, education was always a number one thing in the household. And religion. Religion and education,” Ashleigh said.

Davenport didn’t stray far from home for college, studying biology at Claflin University in South Carolina. That’s also where she met her husband.

“She was always full of life. She was totally alive in the campus life at Claflin University,” said Dr. Charlestine Fairley, one of Davenport’s professors. “She was my student but she became my friend.”

After college, Davenport and her husband moved to Halifax, Virginia, where she taught at one of the first schools to allow Black teachers, her daughter said. Her career next took her to Maryland, where she settled in Severn around 1972. She earned a master’s in biology from Morgan State University in 1976.

During almost four decades with Anne Arundel County Public Schools, Davenport taught science at MacArthur and Marley middle schools and served as an administrative trainee at North County, Old Mill and Meade high schools, school system spokesperson Bob Mosier said.

Tragedy struck around 1990, when her husband Fred died.

“Through that passing of our father, she was able to use that grief period and [start] a lot of organizations that are very much pivotal right now in Anne Arundel County,” Ashleigh Davenport recalled.

Davenport chartered the North Anne Arundel Alumni Chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She started the local chapter of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women. And the local branch of Jack and Jill of America, which aims to nurture future African American leaders. And Continental Societies Inc., Anne Arundel County Chapter, which supports underserved youth.

“Christine has done so much for so many people. She’s touched the lives of many people in the county and the city. She leaves a great legacy and will be missed by many,” said Jacqueline Boone Allsup, former president of the NAACP of Anne Arundel County.

Davenport worked on fundraising, membership and guidance for the NAACP.

“I think if she had a dollar for every hour she volunteered, she’d be a very rich woman,” said Gerald Stansbury, a former president of the Anne Arundel County and Maryland branches of the NAACP. “She always served beyond self. I never heard her ask for anything for herself. She would just ask the question: ‘How can I help? What can I do?’”

Davenport was also one of the first African Americans to serve on the Anne Arundel County Democratic Central Committee, said Snowden.

She mentored and campaigned for Black candidates, including current school board member Gloria Dent, County Councilman Pete Smith, who is running for county executive, and Sheriff Everett Sesker, the first African American elected to that post. Will Shorter, one of her former students, is running to represent the Glen Burnie area on the County Council, and Davenport was working on his campaign when she died.

“She has inspired many,” Allsup said. “She was a mentor for many of the young people within Anne Arundel County.”

Davenport was working on her passion projects until the end, Snowden and others said. On Oct. 7, she presented the scholarships she created, the NAACP Freedom Fund’s Allsup and Stansbury scholarships, to two county students.

“She loved community service,” Ashleigh Davenport said. “She loved to help others. She loved children. She had so much love she wanted to pour into the community. That was her passion, her ‘why.’”

Word of her death shocked those who had seen her Friday evening.

Allsup had just been with her at the scholarships awards celebration and remembers her being full of energy. “We rode home together,” Allsup said. “That evening she seemed well. She looked beautiful.”

A funeral service will be held Wednesday at 11 a.m. MACC Mid Atlantic Church in Gambrills .