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Diane Nash

Diane Nash, a co-founder of the Student Nonviolent Organizing Committee, will deliver a lecture, “Issues of Race & Diversity: What We Need to Do to Get Along,” on Monday, Feb. 27, at 6 p.m., in the Chapel. The lecture is free and open to the public and sponsored by the Days-Massolo Center.

Nash was born and raised in Chicago and attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., for one year before transferring to and graduating from Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn. At Fisk, she began attending nonviolent civil disobedience workshops and in 1960, at the age of 22, began leading Nashville sit-ins. In February 1961, Nash was arrested along with eight others who would become known as the “Rock Hill Nine” for their sit-in at a lunch counter.

From 1961 to 1965, Nash served under Martin Luther King Jr. in the Student Nonviolent Organizing Committee and participated in freedom rides with the Congress of Racial Equality. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy appointed her to a national committee to prepare civil rights legislation.

Nash received the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s highest award, the Rosa Parks Award, in 1965. In 2003, she was awarded the Distinguished American Award from the John F. Kennedy Library and in 2004, the LBJ Award for Leadership in Civil Rights from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. Nash remains committed to non-violent organizing and after returning to Chicago, she became active in fair housing and anti-war efforts.

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