Bayard Rustin

I'm really excited to see this event going on that will highlight several important civil rights threads in our local community, including the Journey of Reconciliation. See this post to learn more about the historic first freedom riders and how they were attacked and arrested in downtown Chapel Hill in 1947. 

Here's the official flyer:

STILL WALKING FOR JUSTICE

Commemorating the 65th Anniversary of the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation - The First Freedom Ride

Saturday, November 3, 2012  

10 a.m. Send Off Rally in Durham 
Corner of W. Chapel Hill & Carroll Streets
Pauli Murray Historic Marker

3:30 p.m.  Welcome Rally in Chapel Hill
Corner of W. Columbia and W. Rosemary Streets
Journey of Reconciliation Historic Marker

More Information: 919/613-6167
www.paulimurrayproject.org

 

Nine Teams of Women will be walking from the Pauli Murray Historic Marker in Durham to the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation Historic Marker in Chapel Hill. They will walk for Pauli Murray, Ella Baker and Juanita Nelson who helped plan the 1947 action but could not participate because of their gender. They will also walk for Virginia Williams, Joanne Preiss, Charlotte Adams & Mildred Ringwalt, Ann Atwater and Doris Lyons, local women activists whose stories we need to know. The 1947 Journey, known as the First Freedom Ride prior to the 1961 Freedom Rides, had nine white and black men. It included Bayard Rustin, use non-violent direct action to test the 1946 Irene Morgan v State of Virginia U.S. Supreme Court ruling desegregating interstate bus and train travel. 

 

Why Are We Still Walking?

The work continues. Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender and Queer rights, voting rights, prisoners’ rights, women’s rights, and civil rights are still on the line and require our vigilance to protect them. The Walk also shows how we can use history to activate memory and motivation for contemporary activism.

 

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere
  – Martin Luther King Jr.

 

Sponsored by the Pauli Murray Project and the Bayard Rustin Centennial Project of the National Black Justice Coalition with support from the Chapel Hill Friends Meeting, the Southern Oral History Program at UNC-CH, Carolwoods Elders for Peace and the Marion Cheek Jackson Center.

http://www.nbjc.org

Co-organized by the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP, this event will feature one of the creators of the 1995 documentary "You Don't have to Ride Jim Crow," as well as discussion about historic civil rights activism in Chapel Hill. 

Reception at 7:00, film at 7:30.