Historic civil rights leaders share experiences with community
Janel Shoun |
The free program will include comments by Rev. James Lawson, a former student activist at Vanderbilt, and C.T. Vivian, who worked closely with Martin Luther King Jr., as well as music by Candie and Guy Carawan, the musician credited with popularizing We Shall Overcome, and Charles Neblett, one of the original Freedom Singers, who traveled the nation singing to raise money for the cause.
The “Veterans of Hope” program is one of several events scheduled in conjunction with the “Beloved Community: Then and Now” class, a for-credit course offered through American Baptist College and Lipscomb University. The Nashville Public Library and Fisk University are also partners in developing and carrying out the history class focused on Nashville’s role in the Civil Rights Movement.
“This is a rare opportunity to see, hear and learn from true heroes who changed the course of history,” said Andrea Blackman, coordinator of the Civil Rights Oral History Project at the Nashville Public Library, who organized the event. “The speakers will share a glimpse into the past, but will also address what we can do today to build the “Beloved Community” of the future.”
The class takes its title, “Beloved Community, Then and Now,” from a phrase often used Rev. James Lawson, then a Vanderbilt University divinity student who organized the sit-ins that eventually ended racial segregation at Nashville’s lunch counters. Lawson, widely known as a teacher of nonviolent theory and tactics in the 1960s, was sent to Nashville by King, who wanted to teach Nashville students non-violent protest methods, Blackman said.
While in Nashville, Lawson mentored a number of young students who became future leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, such as Diane Nash, James Bevel, Marion Barry, John Lewis and Bernard Lafayette.
These student activists in Nashville, along with others in Atlanta and elsewhere in the South joined to form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in April 1960, which played a leading role in the Freedom Rides, the 1963 March on Washington, The Poor People’s March and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
C.T. Vivian also worked closely with King. His activism in Illinois continued in Nashville as a 1960s student at American Baptist College and a leader for the Nashville Student Movement.
He also replaced injured members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) on the Freedom Rides, when students took interstate bus rides to desegregate bus terminals throughout the South. His mistreatment at Parchman Penitentiary sparked a public outcry. He is the founder of Upward Bound and the Center for Democratic Renewal.
The Highlander Center was founded in 1932 to educate community workers involved in social and economic justice movements. Its goal, then and now, is to provide education and support to poor and working people fighting economic injustice, poverty and prejudice.
From the ‘60s to the ‘90s, the Carawans organized cultural workshops focused on civil rights and citizenship education. In 1959 Guy Carawan began to teach “We Shall Overcome,” an old gospel song arranged and expanded by folk singer and political activist Pete Seeger, to Highlander students. The song’s popularity spread from there and became an anthem of the Civil Rights Movement.
The Carawans currently live next door to Highlander in Grundy County and serve as consultants to the school.
Charles Neblett, from Russellville, KY, traveled the nation as a Freedom Singer, raising money for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee to hold voter registration drives and political activism. The singers were produced by Seeger and often performed in the thick of civil rights battles, such as in Albany, Ga., in 1962.