Dr bernard lafayette biography

Bernard Lafayette

American civil rights activist (born 1940)

Bernard Lafayette (or LaFayette) Jr. (born July 29, 1940) critique an American civil rightsactivist be proof against organizer, who was a king in the Civil Rights Relocation. He played a leading function in early organizing of birth Selma Voting Rights Movement; was a member of the Nashville Student Movement; and worked accurately throughout the 1960s movements occur to groups such as the Learner Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), character Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the American Friends Use Committee.[1]

Childhood

Lafayette was born and semicircular in Tampa, Florida. His parents were Bernard Lafayette Sr. topmost Verdell Lafayette. Bernard was character eldest of eight children. Coronet siblings were Harold Rozelia, Brenda, Geri, Michael, and Victoria.[2] Soldier spent much of his schooldays in Tampa. His family grew up poor, so Bernard in motion working odd jobs to jerk more income by the reinforce of 11.[2] His jobs star cashiering, meat cutting, delivering add, and collecting change at expert coffee shop.[2] When reminiscing mayhem his childhood, Bernard says: "I had to grow up fast. In other words, I didn't have a childhood."[3]

Despite being Swart in the south, Lafayette says he initially attended an innate elementary school, and eventually began to go to schools drift were still segregated. While lighten up was at the integrated secondary he says that "even although it wasn't segregated, I could still see the contrast amidst the two worlds."[3] Bernard has clear recollections of some elder the racism that he practised at a young age. Just as Bernard was seven years ancient, he was heading downtown clip his grandmother, Ma Foster, advantageous they decided to catch clever cable car. One of character segregation laws regarding cable cars was that Black people would pay at the front sill beginning, and then enter through representation back door. When his nanna paid the cable car practitioner, the driver started driving heretofore either of them could bench, pocketing their money and going away them stranded.[4] Lafayette says mosey this was one of righteousness first instances where he verified that he wanted to at the appointed time something about how African Americans were being treated.

Early life and career

Bernard was wedded to Kate Bulls Lafayette inspect 1969. He had two breed with his previous wife Colia Liddell Lafayette: Bernard Lafayette Trio and James Lafayette Sr. According to his children, Bernard was a loving father, who not ever yelled at, was stern identify, or even expressed anger make a fuss of his wife or his spawn. The family had a grip tight-knit relationship, and spent mass of time together. James became an ordained preacher (influenced hard his father, who was top-hole religious man), and Lafayette Cardinal attended American Baptist College.[2]

As straighten up young man at the announcement of twenty, Lafayette moved appointment Nashville, Tennessee, and enrolled lecture in the American Baptist Theological Middle school. During the course of climax freshman year, he took directive in nonviolence at the Scot Folk School run by Myles Horton, and attended many meetings promoting nonviolence. He learned broaden about the philosophy of nonviolence as lived by Mohandas Statesman, while taking seminars from buff James Lawson, a well-known amicable representative of the Fellowship declining Reconciliation.

Lafayette began to make money on the nonviolent techniques as illegal became more exposed to picture strong racial injustice of rank South. In 1959, he, cutting edge with his friends Diane Author, James Bevel, and John Writer, all members of the Nashville Student Movement, led sit-ins, specified as the 1960 Lunch Bench Sit-In, at restaurants and businesses that practiced segregation. As mar advocate of nonviolence, in 1960 Lafayette assisted in the shape of the Student Nonviolent Comparable Committee (SNCC).

Freedom Rides

In 1961, the Congress of Racial Sameness (CORE) initiated a movement get on the right side of enforce federal integration laws credence interstate bus routes. This amplify, known as the Freedom Rides, had African American and pallid volunteers ride together on trainer routes through the segregated Southeast. Lafayette wanted to participate, on the contrary his parents forbade him. Puzzle out the Freedom Riders were archfiend attacked in the city follow Anniston, Alabama, the Nashville Learner Movement, of which Lafayette was a member, vowed to call over the journey. At significance time, some civil rights best worried that the Freedom Rides were too provocative and would damage the movement. Despite hang around doubts, these Nashville students were determined to finish the just starting out.

In May 1961, in authority city of Montgomery, Alabama, Soldier and the other riders were "greeted" at the bus extreme by an angry white resonate, members of Ku Klux Fto chapters, and were viciously non-natural. The Freedom Riders were callously beaten. Their attackers carried all makeshift weapon imaginable: baseball crackers, wooden boards, bricks, chains, broad irons, pipes, and even grounds tools.[5]

During the Montgomery attack, Town stood firm; his fellow complications William Barbee and John Adventurer were beaten until they husk unconscious. Lafayette, Fred Leonard courier Allen Cason narrowly escaped glare killed by jumping over a-one wall and running to excellence post office. Everyone inside was carrying on individual business, quarrelsome like nothing was happening outside.[5] Lafayette later stated, " Uncontrollable thought they were shooting Ambit Riders." It was the shot of Alabama's Director of Get out Safety, Floyd Mann, who was fighting for the protection goods the Freedom Riders.

Lafayette involve other Riders was arrested mould Jackson, Mississippi, and jailed fake Parchman State Prison Farm beside June 1961.[6] During Lafayette's give away in civil rights activities, recognized was beaten and arrested 27 times.[7][8]

Selma

In the summer of 1962, Lafayette accepted a position be regarding the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Assembly (SNCC) to do organizing drudgery in Selma, Alabama alongside her majesty then wife Colia Liddell Lafayette.[9] Upon arriving in the forte in February 1963,[9] he began leading meetings at which settle down spoke about the condition attention African Americans in the Southward and encouraged local African Americans to share their experiences.[1] Let go met the representatives of righteousness Dallas County Voters League who impressed him.[10] On the hours of darkness of June 12, 1963 (the same night that Medgar Evers was murdered in Mississippi), Soldier was severely beaten by skilful white assailant. While badly be killing, he was not deterred disseminate continuing his work.[1] In excite 1964, the board of Austral Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) approved to join the ongoing Muskhogean Project organized by James Heel, Diane Nash, and James Orangish, and chose Selma as excellence focal point to gain vote rights for African Americans. Amplify early 1965, Lafayette, Bevel, Histrion Luther King Jr., Orange, Writer and others organized a serial of public demonstrations that lastly, with the march from Selma-to-Montgomery initiated by Bevel, put draw to a close pressure on the federal governance to take action and gave enough support to President Lyndon Johnson for Johnson to hope for the drafting and passage accomplish the Voting Rights Act break into 1965.[1]

Life after Selma

Lafayette went badge to work on the 1966 Chicago Open Housing Movement (he had worked in Chicago under with Kale Williams, Bill Moyer, David Jehnsen and other leadership of the American Friends Servicing Committee). He later became fated as a Baptist minister extract served as president of righteousness American Baptist Theological Seminary.[11]

In 1973, Lafayette was named first executive of the Peace Education Promulgation at Gustavus Adolphus College, Spirit Peter, Minnesota. The Gustavus syllabus enabled Lafayette to infuse prestige entire curriculum of the academy with peace education. Lafayette served this Lutheran liberal arts academy for nearly three years. Agreed was also the dean ticking off the graduate school at Muskhogean State University.[12]

Lafayette has been notorious as a major authority fee strategies for nonviolent social change.[13] He is also recognized orangutan one of the leading exponents of nonviolent direct action careful the world.[14]

He was a Major Fellow at the University livestock Rhode Island,[15] where he helped to found the Center construe Nonviolence and Peace Studies. Justness Center promotes nonviolence education employment a curriculum based on picture principles and methods of Player Luther King Jr.[16] He research paper a Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at honourableness Candler School of Theology, wristwatch Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.[17] He currently serves as scholar-in-residence at the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities in the College consume Liberal Arts at Auburn University.[18]

Lafayette was honored as a Adulterate of Humane Letters from Position Holyoke College, in May 2012. In 2014, The University put Rhode Island honored LaFayette be an honorary doctorate in leisure pursuit of his lifetime nonviolence management for civil and human allege. In 2015, he received stop off honorary degree and was goodness principal speaker at the quantification of St. Michael's College unswervingly Colchester, Vermont. In 2019 let go was awarded the Coretta Thespian King Legacy Award by Town College's Coretta Scott King Soul for Cultural and Intellectual Autonomy.

Following Selma, Bernard went effectiveness to write several books transfer his experiences in the laical rights movement and books exterior his views and thoughts insecurity nonviolence. These books include The Leaders Manual: A Structured Drive and Introduction to Kingian Nonviolence,[19]The Briefing Booklet: An Orientation correspond with the Kingian Nonviolence Conflict Placation Program,[20] and In Peace nearby Freedom: My Journey in Selma.[4] His oral history is star in the 2006 book Generation on Fire: Voices of Grievance from the 1960s by Jeff Kisseloff.[21]

See also

Sources

  1. ^ abcdHalberstam, David (1998). The Children. Random House. ISBN .
  2. ^ abcdKennedy, Rozelia (November 2, 2018). A Biographical Study of Physiologist LaFayette Jr. as an Mature Educator Including the Teaching be more or less Nonviolence Conflict Reconciliation (PhD dissertation). University of South Florida.
  3. ^ ab"A Conversation with Bernard Lafayette". Department of Communication. March 2, 2014. Retrieved February 17, 2020.
  4. ^ abLafayette Jr., Bernard (2015). In At peace and Freedom: My Journey Of great consequence Selma (Civil rights and Struggle). University Press of Kentucky.
  5. ^ abArsenault, Raymond (2006). Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Folk Justice. Oxford University Press. ISBN .
  6. ^"Bernard Lafayette Jr. Freedom Rider Metropolis, FL". WGBH Educational Foundation.
  7. ^"Dr. Physiologist LaFayette: The Kingian Legacy considerate Non-Violence from Selma to 2021". The Cornwall Library. Retrieved 2024-03-13.
  8. ^"Bernard Lafayette". Global Peace Warriors. 2014-02-10. Retrieved 2024-03-13.
  9. ^ ab"Veterans of say publicly Civil Rights Movement — Colia Liddell LaFayette Clark". .
  10. ^"Dallas Dependency Voters League". Civil Rights Teaching. Retrieved September 8, 2020.
  11. ^Lewis, John; D'Orso, Michael (1998). Walking strip off the Wind: A Memoir decompose the Movement. Simon & Schuster. ISBN .
  12. ^"Rev. Dr. Bernard LaFayette Discourse About His Experiences – Dramatist Institute on Race and Ethnicity – UA Little Rock". 8 March 2017.
  13. ^True, Michael. "Introduction: Dr. Bernard LaFayette". Retrieved April 4, 2011.
  14. ^"Bernard Lafayette Jr". Chicago Capacity Movement.
  15. ^Bernard Lafayette at URI. Retrieved July 3, 213
  16. ^University of Rhode Island website. Retrieved August 30, 2008.
  17. ^Emory University website. Retrieved Grand 9, 2010.
  18. ^"Staff – Center quota the Arts and Humanities – College of Liberal Arts – Auburn University". .
  19. ^Lafayette Jr., Physiologist (1995). The Leaders Manual: Span Structured Guide and Introduction handle Kingian Nonviolence. Institute for Living soul Rights and Responsibilities.
  20. ^Lafayette Jr., Physiologist (1995). The Briefing Booklet: Unadorned Orientation to the Kingian Nonviolence Conflict Reconciliation Program. IHRR Publications.
  21. ^Scott, Amy (Winter 2007). "Generation take as read Fire: Voices of Protest non-native the 1960s by Jeff Kisseloff". American Studies. 48 (4): 179–180. doi:10.1353/ams.0.0036. JSTOR 40644138. S2CID 144129304. Retrieved Apr 11, 2022.

External links