Who the hell is Diane Nash?
Attorney General Robert Kennedy Jr called his assistant in 1961 to ask this very question. Nash was one of the organizers of the Freedom Rides, which were created to oppose racial segregation on buses. Kennedy had found out about the Freedom Rides, and demanded to know who was continuing this campaign.
So, who the hell is Diane Nash?
Born in 1938, Nash was born in the height of racial segregation. She became involved in civil rights in college, as she attended civil disobedience lectures and workshops.
She became a leader of the Nashville Sit-ins, a movement in Nashville, Tennessee in which students sat in businesses that were segregated. They refused to leave until served. Sit-ins became a popular form of nonviolent protest, and expanded to several other cities in the country.
The Nashville Sit-ins resulted in the city becoming the first major city in the South to begin desegregating public facilities.
Nash became a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Through the Committee, she was insistent on continuing the Freedom Rides though they were met with violence.
Nash and Martin Luther King Jr worked together with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) for the voter registration campaign. They collaborated for the Selma Voting Rights Campaign, marches that erupted because of the difficulties Black people faced when attempting to vote.
To answer Kennedy’s question, Diane Nash is a civil rights legend. She was a part of a change in history. Her tireless efforts and lifelong commitments to civil rights will forever be remembered.
Comments