Diane Nash

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Diane Nash (2014)

Diane Judith Nash (born May 15, 1938 in Washington, DC ) is an American civil rights activist and leader and strategist of a student organization of the civil rights movement. Nash's campaigns were among the most successful of the era. Her efforts included the first successful civil rights campaign to integrate lunch counters (Nashville), the Freedom Riders , who gave up international travel, co-founding the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); and co-initiation of the Alabama Voting Rights Project and participation in the Selma Voting Rights Movement . This helped Congress pass the 1965 Suffrage Act, which empowered the federal government to monitor and enforce state practices to ensure that African Americans and other minorities were not prevented from registering and voting.

Earlier life

Nash was born in 1938 and grew up in Chicago with her father Leon Nash and mother Dorothy Bolton Nash in a middle-class Catholic area. Her father was a World War II veteran. Her mother worked as a punch card punch during the war and left Nash in the care of her grandmother Carrie Bolton until she was 7 years old. Bolton was a cultured woman known for her sophistication and manners. After the war, the parents' marriage ended. Dorothy remarried to John Baker, a waiter in the Pullman Company's railroad cars . Baker was a member of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters , one of the most powerful black unions in the country. With Dorothy no longer working outside the home, Diane saw her grandmother less often, but she continued to play an important role in Nash's life. Bolton worked to ensure that her granddaughter understood her values ​​and did not often discuss race. She believed that racial prejudice was instilled in the younger generations by the elderly. Her grandmother's words and actions created confidence and a strong sense of self in Diane, while at the same time creating a kind of sheltered environment in which, as she grew older, she became vulnerable to the severity of racism in the outside world.

Web links

Commons : Diane Nash  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files