Bernard Lafayette
Encyclopedia
Bernard Lafayette Jr. is a longtime civil rights activist
Activism
Activism consists of intentional efforts to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change. Activism can take a wide range of forms from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing...

 and organizer, who was a leader in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. He played a leading role in early organizing of the Selma, Alabama
Selma, Alabama
Selma is a city in and the county seat of Dallas County, Alabama, United States, located on the banks of the Alabama River. The population was 20,512 at the 2000 census....

 voting rights campaign, was a member of the Nashville Student Movement
Nashville sit-ins
The Nashville sit-ins, which lasted from February 13 to May 10, 1960, were part of a nonviolent direct action campaign to end racial segregation at lunch counters in downtown Nashville, Tennessee...

, and worked closely throughout the 1960s movements with groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ' was one of the principal organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged from a series of student meetings led by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina in April 1960...

 (SNCC), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is an African-American civil rights organization. SCLC was closely associated with its first president, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr...

 (SCLC), and the American Friends Service Committee
American Friends Service Committee
The American Friends Service Committee is a Religious Society of Friends affiliated organization which works for peace and social justice in the United States and around the world...

.

Early life

Lafayette's parents were Bernard Lafayette Sr. and Verdell Lafayette. Lafayette spent much of his childhood in Tampa, Florida
Tampa, Florida
Tampa is a city in the U.S. state of Florida. It serves as the county seat for Hillsborough County. Tampa is located on the west coast of Florida. The population of Tampa in 2010 was 335,709....

, but also lived in several other places as his father was an itinerant laborer. His family spent two years in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

,where his sister Rozelia was born. It which gave young Bernard his first exposure to integration
Racial integration
Racial integration, or simply integration includes desegregation . In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely...

.

Early career

As a young man, at the age of twenty, Lafayette moved to Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

 and enrolled in the American Baptist Theological Seminary
American Baptist College
American Baptist College is a small, predominantly African American liberal arts college located in Nashville, Tennessee...

. During the course of his freshman year, he took classes in nonviolence at the Highlander Folk School, run by Myles Horton
Myles Horton
Myles Horton was an American educator, socialist and cofounder of the Highlander Folk School, famous for its role in the Civil Rights Movement . Horton taught and heavily influenced most of the era's leaders. They included Dr...

 and attended many meetings promoting nonviolence. Soon after that, he was exposed to the in-depth philosophy of Gandhian
Gandhism
Gandhism is the collection of inspirations, principles, beliefs and philosophy of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , who was a major political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian Independence Movement....

 nonviolence
Nonviolence
Nonviolence has two meanings. It can refer, first, to a general philosophy of abstention from violence because of moral or religious principle It can refer to the behaviour of people using nonviolent action Nonviolence has two (closely related) meanings. (1) It can refer, first, to a general...

 while taking seminars from activist James Lawson, a well-known nonviolent representative of the Fellowship of Reconciliation
Fellowship of Reconciliation
The Fellowship of Reconciliation is the name used by a number of religious nonviolent organizations, particularly in English-speaking countries...

. 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
Diane Nash
Diane Judith Nash was a leader and strategist of the student wing of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. A historian described her as: "…bright, focused, utterly fearless, with an unerring instinct for the correct tactical move at each increment of the crisis; as a leader, her instincts had been...

, James Bevel
James Bevel
James L. Bevel was an American minister and leader of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement who, as the Director of Direct Action and Director of Nonviolent Education of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference initiated, strategized, directed, and developed SCLC's three major successes of the era:...

, and John Lewis
John Lewis
John Lewis may refer to:* John Lewis Partnership, a United Kingdom worker co-operative retailer** John Lewis , a department store chain in the United Kingdom-Politics:...

, 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
Congress of Racial Equality
The Congress of Racial Equality or CORE was a U.S. civil rights organization that originally played a pivotal role for African-Americans in the Civil Rights Movement...

 (CORE) initiated a movement to enforce federal integration laws on interstate bus routes. This movement, known as the Freedom Rides
Freedom ride
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test the United States Supreme Court decisions Boynton v. Virginia and Morgan v. Virginia...

, had African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 and white volunteers ride together on bus routes through the segregated South. Lafayette had a strong desire to participate in the first freedom ride
Freedom ride
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test the United States Supreme Court decisions Boynton v. Virginia and Morgan v. Virginia...

, but his parents forbid him to go. When the Freedom Riders were violently attacked in the city of Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...

, 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
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...

 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
Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery is the capital of the U.S. state of Alabama, and is the county seat of Montgomery County. It is located on the Alabama River southeast of the center of the state, in the Gulf Coastal Plain. As of the 2010 census, Montgomery had a population of 205,764 making it the second-largest city...

, Lafayette and the other riders were "greeted" at the bus terminal by an angry white mob, members of the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...

 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.
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
Montgomery
-In France:* Sainte-Foy-de-Montgommery, a commune in département Calvados, Normandy* Saint-Germain-de-Montgommery, idem* Colleville-Montgomery, idem-In Pakistan:...

 attack, Bernard Lafayette stood firm, yet fearfully, as his fellow riders, William Barbee and John Lewis
John Lewis
John Lewis may refer to:* John Lewis Partnership, a United Kingdom worker co-operative retailer** John Lewis , a department store chain in the United Kingdom-Politics:...

, 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.
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
Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson is the capital and the most populous city of the US state of Mississippi. It is one of two county seats of Hinds County ,. The population of the city declined from 184,256 at the 2000 census to 173,514 at the 2010 census...

 and jail time at Parchman State Prison Farm during June 1961. Because of Lafayette's strong determination and commitment to nonviolence, he was beaten and arrested 27 times during the Civil Rights Movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...

.

Selma

In the summer of 1962, Lafayette accepted a position with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ' was one of the principal organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged from a series of student meetings led by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina in April 1960...

 (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. On the night of June 12, 1963 (the same night that Medgar Evers
Medgar Evers
Medgar Wiley Evers was an African American civil rights activist from Mississippi involved in efforts to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi...

 was murdered in Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

), Lafayette was severely beaten by a white assailant. While badly injured, he was not deterred from continuing his work. In late 1964 the board of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) decided to join the ongoing Alabama Project organized by James Bevel
James Bevel
James L. Bevel was an American minister and leader of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement who, as the Director of Direct Action and Director of Nonviolent Education of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference initiated, strategized, directed, and developed SCLC's three major successes of the era:...

, Diane Nash
Diane Nash
Diane Judith Nash was a leader and strategist of the student wing of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. A historian described her as: "…bright, focused, utterly fearless, with an unerring instinct for the correct tactical move at each increment of the crisis; as a leader, her instincts had been...

, and James Orange
James Orange
James Edward Orange, MLK March website biography. Accessed 2008-02-17. was a pastor and a leading civil rights activist in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in America.-Personal life:...

, 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
Selma to Montgomery marches
The Selma to Montgomery marches were three marches in 1965 that marked the political and emotional peak of the American civil rights movement. They grew out of the voting rights movement in Selma, Alabama, launched by local African-Americans who formed the Dallas County Voters League...

 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.

Life after Selma

Lafayette went on to work on the 1966 Chicago Open Housing Movement
Chicago Freedom Movement
The Chicago Freedom Movement, also known as the Chicago Open Housing Movement, was led by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and Al Raby. The movement included a large rally, marches, and demands to the City of Chicago...

 (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.

Lafayette has also held the post of Senior Fellow at the University of Rhode Island
University of Rhode Island
The University of Rhode Island is the principal public research university in the U.S. state of Rhode Island. Its main campus is located in Kingston. Additional campuses include the Feinstein Campus in Providence, the Narragansett Bay Campus in Narragansett, and the W. Alton Jones Campus in West...

, 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. He is now a Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the Candler School of Theology, at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

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. He is also recognized as one of the leading exponents of nonviolent direct action in the world.

Sources

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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