Civil rights activist Dr. Nash urges Lansing crowd to 'think and act outside the box'
Haley HansenLANSING — Dr. Diane Nash left Monday's crowd at the Lansing Center with a reading list.
In her address at the 33rd Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Luncheon, Nash also stressed the importance of understanding that the civil rights movement didn't only belong to Dr. King.
“If you understand that it was a people's movement and you see things in society that need to be done, you are more likely to ask the question: ‘what can I do?’” she said.
Nash is widely recognized as the mother of the Freedom Riders movement, which aimed to desegregate interstate travel. She worked to recruit new Freedom Riders and gain the support of national movement leaders and the federal government.
In her speech, Nash recalled memories of meeting Harry Belafonte, and of double dating with MLK and Coretta Scott King. But she also criticized public officials and emphasized the importance of citizen-led movements.
"There are 300 million of us. That is a lot of brain power and man power and woman power," she said. "If we, 99% of the population, allow 1% or less of the population to rule us, we are really chumps."
Nash also left the crowd with homework, recommending a handful of books on peaceful protest.
“You can't just go about your normal routine and expect change," she said. "You have to think and act outside the box.”
Following the ceremony, Nash met with three of the four Lansing Catholic football players who were disciplined during the fall sports season for kneeling and planning to kneel at games.
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"I told them I absolutely support them and that I’m so proud of them. I think that they are correct. I think they’re right,” she said. “For citizens to be murdered by police unjustly and no one held accountable is something that ought to be protested by any right-thinking citizen.”
Nash was a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. In her early 20s, she coordinated the Freedom Ride from Birmingham, Alabama, to Jackson, Mississippi in 1961. She was appointed to a national committee by President John F. Kennedy that promoted passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. She later became active in the peace movement, working to end the Vietnam War.
“She should have reminded us that our work is not done and that all of us have work to do,” Elaine Hardy, chair of the Greater Lansing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Commission, said following Nash's Monday address.
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More than 1,400 people attended the Monday's luncheon to listen to remarks from Nash and local officials. Gospel singer CeCe Winans also performed. Longtime Lansing resident and founder of the Uplift Our Youth Foundation Larry Leatherwood won the King Legacy and Service Award at the event.
The theme for the 2018 luncheon was “We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope." The phrase comes from a speech King made in Washington D.C. in 1968.
The luncheon, presented by the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Commission, also featured remarks from Lansing Mayor Andy Schor, East Lansing Mayor Mark Meadows, East Lansing City Council member Aaron Stephens, Rep. Mike Bishop and Michigan State University President Lou Anna Simon.
On Jan. 12, the commission received $145,000 in donations from area businesses. That money will help support equality, diversity and social justice efforts by the commission and will help fund scholarships, Hardy said.
Diane Nash's reading list
"The Power of Non-Violence" by Richard Gregg
"The Story of My Experiments With Truth" by Mohandas K. Gandhi
"Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict" by Joan Valerie Bondurant
Contact reporter Haley Hansen at (517) 267-1344 or hhansen@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @halehansen.