Black History Month: Tuesday to #OurHerO Diane Nash

Diane Nash: Diane Nash wasn’t just involved in the civil rights movement, she was leading multiple student sit-ins in Nashville and later went on to coordinate the freedom rides. (Freedom Riders were groups of African American and white civil rights activists who participated in bus trips through the South in 1961 to protest segregated bus terminals. @Thehistorychannel). Born in 1938 and raised in Chicago it wasn’t until she attended an #HBCU at #Fisk university in Nashville that she recognized the what being treated as a second-class citizen under Jim crow laws was like. Nash was not going to just go along with these Jim Crow rules, at 22 years old she organized sit-ins at discriminatory Restaurants throughout the city her first one being in 1960…. YALL THAT WAS 59 YEARS AGO!!! MY PARENTS AREN’T EVEN 60!!!

In May of that year, Nashville became the FIRST southern city to desegregate lunch counters *Inserts Twerking Gif* Freedom Rides continued through fall of 1961 where they made segregated bus rides illegally in November of 61’. Soon after this badass boss, babe went to jail for ten days WHILE 6 months pregnant. She played a major role in the Selma Voting Rights Campaign that eventually led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Voting Rights Act is considered one of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history@Thehistorychannel.). She was also appointed to a national committee by President John F. Kennedy that promoted passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Nash was named a recipient of the Distinguished American Award from the John F. Kennedy Library and Foundation in 2003 and the LBJ Award of Leadership in Civil Rights from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum the following year. Additionally, she has been awarded honorary doctorates from Fisk University and the University of Notre Dame. She STILL lives and works in her hometown of Chicago. She is still peacefully advocating for fair housing, women’s rights and social justice to this day. S/O To Mrs. Nash for all she has done and for still being healthy and alive to this day to tell her story. #OurHerO