Bernard Lafayette Jr. (born July 29, 1940 in Tampa, Florida) is a longtime civil rights activist and organizer, who was a leader in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. He played a leading role in early organizing of the Selma, Alabama voting rights campaign, was a member of the Nashville Student Movement, and worked closely throughout the 1960s movements with groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the American Friends Service Committee.[1]
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Early life
Lafayette's parents were Bernard Lafayette Sr. and Verdell Lafayette. Lafayette spent much of his childhood in Tampa, Florida, but also lived in several other places as his father was an itinerant laborer. His family spent two years in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,where his sister Rozelia was born. It which gave young Bernard his first exposure to integration.[1]
Early career
As a young man, at the age of twenty, Lafayette moved to Nashville, Tennessee and enrolled in the American Baptist Theological Seminary. During the course of his freshman year, he took classes in nonviolence at the Highlander Folk School, run by Myles Horton and attended many meetings promoting nonviolence. Soon after that, he was exposed to the in-depth philosophy of Gandhian nonviolence while taking seminars from activist James Lawson, a well-known nonviolent representative of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Lafayette soon began to use the nonviolent techniques taught in those meetings as he became more exposed to the strong racial injustice of the South. In 1959, he, along with his fellow friends, Diane Nash, James Bevel, and John Lewis, all members of the Nashville Student Movement, lead sit-ins, such as the 1960 Lunch Counter Sit-In, at restaurants and businesses that promoted the ways of segregation. As a strong advocate of nonviolence, Lafayette, in 1960, assisted in the formation of a group known as the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
Freedom rides
In 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) initiated a movement to enforce federal integration laws on interstate bus routes. This movement, known as the Freedom Rides, had African American and white volunteers ride together on bus routes through the segregated South. Lafayette had a strong desire to participate in the first freedom ride, but his parents forbid him to go. When the Freedom Riders were violently attacked in the city of Birmingham, Alabama, the Nashville Student Movement, of which Lafayette was a member, vowed to take over the journey. At this moment, some leaders of the Civil Rights Movement and many blacks in general disagreed with the riskful actions of Lafayette and his fellow nonviolent activist. They felt that their actions would put a strong hold on freedom and equality of the races. Despite many doubts, these Nashville students were determined to finish the job, even if death was the ultimate consequence.
In May 1961, in the city of Montgomery, Alabama, Lafayette and the other riders were "greeted" at the bus terminal by an angry white mob, members of the Ku Klux Klan society, and were viciously attacked. The Freedom Riders were brutally beaten. Their attackers carried every makeshift weapon imaginable: baseball bats, wooden boards, bricks, chains, tire irons, pipes, and even garden tools.[2] Freedom Riders were beat by not only men, but also women and children who sought to claw the faces of these equality promoters.
During the Montgomery attack, Bernard Lafayette stood firm, yet fearfully, as his fellow riders, William Barbee and John Lewis, were beaten until they fell unconscious. Before the determined segregationists, with their weapons in hand, turned to Lafayette and the two other riders, Fred Leonard and Allen Cason, they narrowly escaped being killed by jumping over a wall and running to the post office, where it is said that everyone inside were carrying on their business, just like nothing was happening outside.[2] Bernard later stated, " I thought they were shooting Freedom Riders." Fortunately, it was the gunshot of the well-known segregationist, Floyd Mann, who was shockingly fighting for the protection of the freedom riders.
Although Bernard Lafayette escaped the hands of death, he soon endured an arrest in Jackson, Mississippi and jail time at Parchman State Prison Farm during June 1961.[3] Because of Lafayette's strong determination and commitment to nonviolence, he was beaten and arrested 27 times during the Civil Rights Movement.[4]
Selma
In the summer of 1962, Lafayette accepted a position with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), to do organizing work in Selma, Alabama. Upon arriving in the city, he began leading meetings at which he spoke about the condition of African Americans in the South, and encouraged local African Americans to share their experiences.[1] On the night of June 12, 1963 (the same night that Medgar Evers was murdered in Mississippi), Lafayette was severely beaten by a white assailant. While badly injured, he was not deterred from continuing his work.[1] In late 1964 the board of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) decided to join the ongoing Alabama Project organized by James Bevel, Diane Nash, and James Orange, and chose Selma as the focal point to gain voting rights for African Americans. In early 1965 Lafayette, Bevel, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Orange, Nash and others organized a series of public demonstrations that finally—with the march from Selma-to-Montgomery initiated by Bevel—put enough pressure on the federal government to take action, and gave enough support to President Lyndon Johnson for Johnson to demand the drafting and passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.[1]
Life after Selma
Lafayette went on to work on the 1966 Chicago Open Housing Movement (he had worked in Chicago earlier with Kale Williams and other leaders of the American Friends Service Committee), and later became president of the American Baptist Theological Seminary.[5]
Lafayette has also held the post of Senior Fellow at the University of Rhode Island, where he helped to found the Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies. The Center promotes nonviolence education using a curriculum based on the principles and methods of Martin Luther King Jr.[6] He is now a Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the Candler School of Theology, at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.[7]
In 1973, Lafayette was named first director of the Peace Education Program at Gustavus Adolphus College, Saint Peter, Minnesota. The Gustavus program enabled Lafayette to infuse the entire curriculum of the college with peace education. Lafayette served this midwestern Lutheran, Liberal Arts college for nearly three years. He is now recognized as a major authority on strategies for nonviolent social change.[8] He is also recognized as one of the leading exponents of nonviolent direct action in the world.[9]
See also
Phillip H. Savage, Tri-State Director, NAACP
Sources
- ^ a b c d e Halberstam, David (1998). The Children. Random House. ISBN 978-0-679-41561-9.
- ^ a b Arsenault, Raymond (2006). Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-513674-6.
- ^ "Bernard Lafayette Jr. Freedom Rider Tampa, FL". WGBH Educational Foundation. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/freedomriders/people/bernard-lafayette-jr.
- ^ Shalal-Esa, Andrea. "Bernard Lafayette: Martin Luther King's Disciple". http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/bernard-lafayette-martin-luther-kings.html. Retrieved 2011-04-04.
- ^ Lewis, John; D'Orso, Michael (1998). Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-81065-2.
- ^ University of Rhode Island website. Retrieved on 30 August 2008.
- ^ [www.candler.emory.edu Emory University website]. Retrieved on 09 August 2010.
- ^ True, Michael. "Introduction: Dr. Bernard LaFayette". http://supportcom.com/PEP/www.pepeace.org/current_reprints/06/lafayette-bio.htm. Retrieved 2011-04-04.
- ^ "Bernard Lafayette Jr.". Chicago Freedom Movement. http://cfm40.middlebury.edu/node/111.