Join Arizona Public Media for a historic guest appearance by Freedom Rider, Dr. Bernard LaFayette, Jr. commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the 1961 Freedom Rides.

The event takes place Monday, April 25 from 6 to 8:30 p.m. in the UA Modern Languages building, room 350. Free admission, seating is limited. Sign up here for the Tucson event or the April 23 event at Arizona State University’s Eight-Arizona PBS Studio A:
(http://www.asset.asu.edu/new/events.html#community_events).

The event will include a presentation by Dr. LaFayette, previews of the PBS film “Freedom Riders,” plus new local documentary: “Barrios & Barriers: Tucson’s Civil Rights Era.”

photo courtesy of AZPM

Following the screening there will be a panel presentation featuring: Freedom Rider & civil rights pioneer, Bernard LaFayette, Jr.; Clarence Boykins, Director, Tucson/So AZ Black Chamber of Commerce; & Guadalupe Castillo, Co-Chair of Derechos Humanos; History Professor at Pima Community College.

Co-Hosted by: the Nonviolence Legacy Project / Culture of Peace Alliance and Arizona Public Media.

American Experience PBS: FREEDOM RIDERS is the powerful, harrowing and ultimately inspirational story of six months in 1961 that changed America forever. From May until November 1961, more than 400 black and white
Americans risked their lives – many endured savage beatings and imprisonment
– for simply traveling together on buses and trains as they journeyed
through the Deep South. Deliberately violating Jim Crow laws, the Freedom
Riders met with bitter racism and mob violence along the way, sorely testing
their belief in nonviolent activism. For more information about the film
visit the American Experience website.
http://phoenixnonviolence.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b18c41f2c4a93ae2f7c312cde&id=6cf1360a08&e=a8ea6785ce

Dr. Bernard LaFayette, Jr., has been a Civil Rights Movement activist,
minister, educator, lecturer and is a global authority on the strategy of
nonviolent social change. He co-founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC) in 1960, where he was a leader of the Nashville movement.
In 1961, he was beaten and jailed during the Freedom Rides. Miraculously, he
also survived an assassination attempt by the Ku Klux Klan in Selma,
Alabama.

He served on the Executive Staff of Martin Luther King, Jr., and was
appointed by Dr. King as National Program Administrator for the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and National Coordinator for the 1968 Poor Peoples’ Campaign.