Keynote Speaker will be civil rights and peace activist Diane Nash
(Evansville, IN) – The Evansville-Vanderburgh County Human Relations Commission will hold
its Annual Dinner on Wednesday, September 19, 2012, at 7:00 p.m. at The Centre. The keynote
speaker will be civil rights and peace activist Diane Nash.
Mayor Lloyd Winnecke will present the 2012 Mayor’s Celebration of Diversity Awards at the
Annual Dinner. The awards recognize businesses, organizations and individuals that embrace
and celebrate diversity. Nominations will be accepted through Friday, September 10, 2012. To
make a nomination, please go to www.evansvillegov.org/diversityawards or contact the Human
Relations Commission at (812) 436-4927.
Ticket donations are $30 per person. Corporate sponsorships are also available. Please contact
the Human Relations Commission at (812) 436-4927 before Friday, September 7, to make a
reservation.
About Diane Nash
A Chicago native who had never experienced segregation in public accommodations before
moving to the South, Diane Nash went on to become one of the pioneers of the Civil Rights
Movement.
Nash’s involvement in the nonviolent movement began in 1959 while she was student at Fisk
University. In 1960, she became the chairperson of the student sit in movement in Nashville,
Tennessee- the first southern city to desegregate its lunch counters-as well as one of the founding
students of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee.
In 1961, she coordinated the Freedom Ride from Birmingham, Alabama, to Jackson, Mississippi,
a story which was documented in the recent PBS American Experience film Freedom Riders.
Her many arrests for her civil rights activities culminated in Nash being imprisoned for 30 days
in 1961, while she was pregnant with her first child. Undeterred, she went on to join a national
committee – to which she was appointed by President John F. Kennedy – that promoted passage
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Nash later became active in the peace movement that worked to
end the Vietnam War, and became an instructor in the philosophy and strategy of non-violence
as developed by Mohandas Gandhi.
Diane Nash is the recipient of numerous awards, including the War Resisters League Peace
Award; the Distinguished American Award presented by the John F. Kennedy Library; the LBJ
Award for Leadership in Civil Rights from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum;
and an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Fisk University, her alma mater. More
recently, Nash delivered the 2009 Slavery Remembrance Day Memorial Lecture in Liverpool,
England.
Her work has been cited in numerous books, documentaries, magazines and newspaper articles,
and she has appeared on such TV shows and films as The Oprah Winfrey Show, Spike Lee’s
Four Little Girls, and PBS’s Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years 1954-1965.
