Bernard LaFayette

Dr. Bernard LaFayatte, 2016

Courtesy of The April 4th Foundation

Quick Facts

Significance:

SNCC Field Agent in Selma, AL

Place of Birth:

Tampa, FL

Date of Birth:

July 29, 1940

Rev. Bernard Lafayette is a major civil rights activist.

In his youth, Lafayette moved to Nashville to attend school at American Baptist Theological Seminary where he participated in weekly meetings with James Morris Lawson Jr. These weekly meetings taught methods of nonviolent protest to Lafayette and his classmates and sparked the creation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC.)

The founding of SNCC led Lafayette to organize sit-ins and voter registration drives across the South. Lafayette played a significant role in organizing the Freedom Rides and worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., within the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He continued his activism globally, promoting nonviolence and human rights.

In 1963 Bernard Lafayette took up a position organizing the Civil Rights movement in Selma, Alabama with his then wife, Colia Liddell Lafayette, aiding him. With Rev. Bernard Lafayette efforts in Selma, the Selma to Montgomery march achieved its goal with the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.Rev. Bernard Lafayette went on to contribute to many projects and movements like the Chicago Open Housing Movement of 1966. He is still participating in the efforts to protect Civil Rights in the U.S and is a Senior Scholar in Residence at Emory University in Atlanta, GA.