Freedom Riders of 1961 Panel

1615 East 18th Street,Kansas City MO 64108

20 April, 2023

Description

Join us for a discussion among four Freedom Riders —Dion Diamond, Joan Browning, Dr. Lenora Taitt Magubane, and Dr. Bernard LaFayette Jr. — as they speak about their experiences challenging segregation across the American South. FREE and open to the public. Dr. Bernard LaFayette has authored several works about his long involvement in the American Civil Rights Movement, and his new memoir is "In Peace and Freedom: My Journey in Selma." The book shares the story of his work as one of the primary organizers of the Selma voting rights movement and the Selma-to-Montgomery marches. This is only one chapter of his deep involvement in civil rights movement from the Nashville sit-ins to the Freedom Rides, and Martin Luther King's decision to appoint him as the director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1967. Dr. LaFayette was also the leader of the Freedom Summer in 1968. More information about Dr. LaFayette's life and work can be found in the King Institute's Encyclopedia of the Civil Rights Movement. Joan Browning participated in the sit-in movement, picketed segregated stores and facilities, and was the "last Freedom Rider," the final person selected to join the last Freedom Ride of 1961. She is one of nine southern women who joined the Freedom Rides, and her chapter "Shiloh Witness," in Deep in Our Hearts: Nine White Women in the Freedom Movement, tells her journey and some of the unique experiences and challenges women faced in the 1960s. More information about Joan's involvement in the movement can be found in the Civil Rights Digital Library. Dion Diamond began conducting sit-ins as a teenager in his hometown of Petersburg, Virginia. His activism continued at Howard University. He participated in a Freedom Ride from Montgomery, Alabama to Jackson, Mississippi. Upon the arrival of their bus in Jackson, Diamond and his fellow Freedom Riders were arrested for "breach of peace;" he was incarcerated in Mississippi for much of the summer of 1961. More information about Mr. Diamond's involvement in the movement can be found on StoryCorps and this short video. Dr. A. Lenora Taitt-Magubane became involved in the civil rights movement while attending Spelman College in Atlanta, where she became a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Her first sit-in occurred in March 1960 when she participated in an an attempt to integrate the Atlanta Municipal Auditorium. Two weeks later, Dr.Taitt-Magubane was arrested at a lunch counter sit-in with 77 other students and Dr. Martin Luther King. She spent 15 days in the Atlanta, Fulton County Jail. In December 1961 traveling by train from Atlanta, she was one of the 11 Albany Georgia freedom riders who tested interstate travel. She was arrested and spent two weeks in the Albany City and County jails. More information about her life is available in this interview and her papers at Emory University.