Dr. Bernard Lafayette has long been known as a global authority on Kingian Nonviolence. Lafayette, SNCC Co-Founder and original Freedom Rider in the Civil Rights Movement, astounded the international community after successfully cross training police forces and former gang members in South Central Los Angeles the principles of Kingian Nonviolence. The results of the training in the South Central LA region were seen almost immediately in a sharp decline in police and gang violence.
Since, Dr. Lafayette has not only taught Kingian Nonviolence in the United States, but also across the world with incredible results.
More information about Dr. Bernard Lafayette can be found below and anywhere you may search for him on the web.
M. Kita Williams, civilrightsagenda.com
Biography
Credit: WGBH
Bernard Lafayette Jr.
Freedom RiderTampa, FL
Twenty-year-old Bernard Lafayette hailed from Tampa, FL and was enrolled as an undergraduate at Nashville’s American Baptist Theological Seminary. A veteran of the Nashville sit-ins, Lafayette had already staged a successful impromptu Freedom Ride with his close friend and fellow student activistJohn Lewis in 1959, while traveling home for Christmas break, when they decided to exercise their rights as interstate passengers by sitting in the front of a bus from Nashville, TN to Birmingham, AL.
As part of the May 17 Nashville Student Movement Ride, Lafayette endured jail time in Birmingham, riots and firebombings in Montgomery, AL, an arrest in Jackson, MSand jail time at Parchman State Prison Farm during June 1961.
After the end of the Freedom Riders campaign, he worked on voting rights and helped to coordinate the 1968 Poor Peoples Campaign. He completed a doctorate in Education at Harvard University and for several years was the Director of the Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies at the University of Rhode Island. He currently teaches at Emory University and conducts nonviolent workshops worldwide.
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