Item
Bibliographic Resource
“Coed Who Gave Up College To Fight For Rights” - Article from Jet Magazine
- Title of the Document
- “Coed Who Gave Up College To Fight For Rights” - Article from Jet Magazine
- One Line Summary
- This Jet Magazine article highlights Nash’s accomplishments after the Nashville sit-ins, particularly her work as a Freedom Rider.
- Author
- Unknown
- Date Created
- June 29, 1961
- Location
-
Nashville, TN
- Type of Document
- Newspaper Article
- Publisher
- Jet Magazine
- Transcription
-
“One of the unheralded members of the brain trust that is making the Freedom Ride movement a well coordinated operation is attractive, 22-year-old ex-Fisk University coed Diane Nash (see cover)
When Diane heard that the original Freedom Riders were forced to flee Birmingham mobs by plane, she immediately decided: “We can’t let the Freedom Ride stop now. We must go on from Birmingham to New Orleans or everything we have worked for is gone.”
As secretary of the Nashville Christian Leadership Council, a member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (students from 16 colleges), she rallied other student leaders.
Getting white coed Salynn McCullum of George Peabody College, snatching American Baptist Theological Seminary students Paul Brooks and James Bevels from their dates, and rounding up senior Catherine Burks from Tennessee State A & I University, Diane and the students decided promptly to continue the ride. Following an all-day meeting with the Rev. Kelly Miller Smith, NCLC president, 10 students were headed for Birmingham.
Storming walls of segregation is nothing new to Diane, who participated in her first sit-in in Nashville in 1960. A former runner-up in a Chicago “Miss America” contest, she served 30 days in jail for leading a Rock Hill, SC demonstration. Anxious for an opportunity to explain Freedom Rider goals to Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy and the President, the comely coed says: “I’ll be doing this the rest of my life.”
- Related
- Salynn McCullum, Paul Brooks, James Bevels, Catherine Burks, Rev. Kelly Miller Smith, Robert Kennedy
- Provenance
- Nash, Diane. “Coed Who Gave Up College To Fight For Rights." Johnson Publishing Company, Google Books. Jet: The Strangest Magazine In The World, June 29, 1961. https://books.google.com/books?id=e7MDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA49&dq=jet%20magazine%20diane%20nash&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false.