About Bernard Lafayette
Bernard Lafayette Jr. was an American civil rights activist, organizer and Baptist minister, who was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement. He played a leading role in early organizing of the Selma Voting Rights Movement. He was also a member of the Nashville Student Movement and worked closely throughout the 1960s movements with groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the American Friends Service Committee. Lafayette said that this was one of the first instances where he realized that he wanted to do something about how African Americans were being treated. In 1973, Lafayette was named first director of the Peace Education Program at Gustavus Adolphus College, Saint Peter, Minnesota. In 2019 he was awarded the Coretta Scott King Legacy Award by Antioch College's Coretta Scott King Center for Cultural and Intellectual Freedom. Lafayette began to use the nonviolent techniques as he became more exposed to the strong racial injustice of the South.
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