Chairman’s Corner

Dr. Bernard LaFayette Jr. holds class on Civil Rights and the Media

Written By: Maynard Eaton, Editor- In- Chief

He is a civil rights legend who has traveled the world as a renowned authority on the value, virtues and strategy on nonviolent social change. During Black History Month SCLC Chairman, author and activist, Dr. Bernard LaFayette Jr. agreed to offer his insights, via ZOOM, to a Hampton University journalism class entitled, The Civil Rights Era & The Media.

Dr. LaFayette was there at the invitation of this reporter who teaches there as an Endowed Professor and has been SCLC’s National Communications Director for a decade or more.

“The only way we could reach the public and a larger number of people was through the media because everybody could not be on site to see what was going on,” he explained to the riveted 25 students he was lecturing. “So, we depended on them; not only to see the action that we were taking but also to understand the goals that we were trying to reach and also how they could help and support what we were doing.”

Dr. LaFayette compellingly continued, “There was no way for people to appreciate our purpose, our goals, our objectives. Nor could they appreciate the kind of abuse we received as a result of our demonstrations in civil rights unless the media was there to interpret that and to share that. So, we had an official, authorized news reporter in our meetings to tell the story.”

As a student, Dr LaFayette was the co-founder of the National Student Movement, widely regarded as one of the most disciplined and effective student desegregation organizations. During its lifespan, LaFayette said to the journalism class, students staged sit-ins at lunch counters, movie theaters and bus stations. Together, LaFayette and others report, the group affected real change in Tennessee's capital but they were not satisfied. “We wanted to reach the public,” he said.

The Nashville Student Movement, LaFayette recounts, got their chance to work on a bigger stage in 1960. The Tennessee group, along with 125 other student delegations, were invited by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and SCLC director Ella Baker to attend a conference in North Carolina. From these student organizations, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee or SNCC was formed.

Lafayette said that Diane Nash was appointed as SNCC’s official media point-person, which amounted to an historic Black female first for that era.

“She was an English major, and she also had that commitment and understanding of what we were trying to accomplish,” he opined to the Hampton University class. “What we were doing was quite different from what many other people had done in the past. We were having direct action, and confrontations but we were about nonviolence. That’s the thing we wanted to get across to the rest of the public, not only in Nashville but around the world. We wanted to be a non-violent example, and that was something new to a lot of people.”

Nash’s role was a crucial one, Dr. LaFayette said, because large, white-owned media companies were not always sharing nor reporting the full story. “That’s why we had a close relationship with people in the media. The media has a very powerful role in shaping the thinking of people,” LaFayette lectured.

The Black Press, in particular, provided a more personal and truthful look at the struggle. By “reporting in-depth our suffering” especially by taking and publishing photos of the violent backlash that protesters were enduring, the Black Press helped to illustrate just how bad segregated conditions in the South had become and what was being done about it.

Surprisingly, the methods used to disseminate information about rallies, freedom rides, sit-ins or demonstrations were strikingly similar to the way information is spread today. LaFayette recalled a homebound elderly woman who helped organize the group’s mass meetings. Students would gather on her porch for hours as she employed her “phone tree”. She would call ten people, who would then call ten other people, and so on. She would even call in to radio talk shows to spread the event information to members and potential new allies alike.

“It helped get other people to participate, even when they could not be there,” said LaFayette.

Now, as the longtime chairman of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Dr. LaFayette still believes in Dr. Martin Luther King’s nonviolent, hopeful approach, even for current activists. In fact, he’s written multiple books on the topic, such as “The Leaders Manual: A Structured Guide and Introduction to Kingian Nonviolence”.

“What is it we can do to help people have a more positive attitude?” LaFayette asked. “One thing you can do is give people hope that things can change. We have seen change, so there can still be change. Nonviolence is [still] how we get justice.”

During a Q&A session, I asked Dr. LaFayette to express his opinion on the controversial proposal to rename Selma, Alabama’s Edmund Pettus Bridge in honor of the late Congressman and civil rights leader, John Lewis, who was among Rev. Hosea Williams and others who were beaten there 58 years ago on what is known as “Bloody Sunday”.

LaFayette answered, “I believe the name change would be a good thing, because naming the bridge after such a monumental, well known person makes it so people pay attention to what happened on ‘Bloody Sunday’. Not everyone’s name can go on the bridge because there would be too many names, why not make it an influential figure [like John Lewis] and bring national attention to it.”

Hampton University students Amarah Ennis and Kye Harrell contributed to this story

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