Description:

Esteemed civil rights activist and Chicago native Diane Nash will participate in a campus conversation facilitated by Dr. Martha Biondi, Lorraine H. Morton Professor of African American Studies. Attendance to the event is free and open to the public.

Nash is well known as an esteemed leader and strategist of the 1960s civil rights movement. Nash was particularly involved with integrating lunch counters through sit-ins, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Selma Right-to-vote movement and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1961, Nash coordinated the Freedom Ride from Birmingham, Ala. to Jackson, Miss. Nash also played a key role in bringing Martin Luther King Jr. to Montgomery, Ala. in support of the Freedom Riders.

Throughout Nash’s work, she encountered numerous arrests for her civil rights activities, one that included her being imprisoned while pregnant with her first child. Determined for continuous social change, she became part of a national committee – appointed by President John F. Kennedy – that promoted passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964