Diane Nash was a pioneer of the nonviolent civil rights movement. Diane Judith Nash was born on May 15, 1938 in Chicago, Illinois. Nash grew up a Roman Catholic and attended parochial and public schools in Chicago. After high school graduation she began her college career in Washington, D.C., at Howard University and later transferred to Fisk University in Nashville. At the time of Diane Nash's arrival, racial segregation permeated Nashville. Nash's encounters with the inequities, immorality, and privation of southern segregation led her to seek rectification actively.
Although initially a skeptic, Nash became a staunch believer in nonviolent tactics. Early in 1959 she attended workshops on nonviolence directed by the Reverend James Lawson under the auspices of the Nashville Christian Leadership Conference. There, Nash “got a really good, excellent education in nonviolence and how to practice it” and became an unwavering believer in nonviolence as a way of life. Now a strong supporter of the direct nonviolent-protest philosophy, Nash began to understand their effectiveness and marveled at the willingness of people to risk their lives for the sake of others. Nash was elected chair of the Student Central Committee.
In late 1959 she was among those who “tested” the exclusionary racial policy of Nashville's downtown lunch counters. Their sit-ins occurred in conjunction with the wave of sit-ins across the South initiated in Greensboro, North Carolina, on 1 February 1960. Students, well-dressed and scrupulously trained in nonviolence would, show up to a segregated lunch counter, sit down and wait to be served. The first phase of Nashville's movement began on February 13, 1960. In April, after thousands gathered for a silent march through the streets of Nashville, Nash confronted mayor Ben West on the steps of city hall. Nash admitted that she was afraid.
“[She] asked me some pretty soul searching questions,” West later recalled. “And one that was addressed to me as a man, I tried as best as I could to answer it frankly and honestly. I could not agree that it was morally right for someone to sell them merchandise and refuse them service, and I had to answer it exactly that way.” It was in response to this April 19 query about the immorality of segregation that Nashville mayor Ben West began organized negotiations between Nash and other student leaders and downtown business interests.
Three months later on May 10, when Nashville became the first southern city to desegregate all of its lunch counters. Nash and three other students were first successfully served at the Post House Restaurant on March 17, 1960. The protests would continue in Nashville and across the South. In April 1960 Nash and other students from across the South assembled in Raleigh, North Carolina at the urging of NAACP activist Ella Baker. There they founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). She was selected as the chairperson.
In February of 1961 SNCC began supporting 10 students in Rock Hill, South Carolina, who were involved in protest activities. Shortly after arriving in Rock Hill, Nash and three other activists served jail time in solidarity with the "Rock Hill Nine" for requesting service at a segregated lunch counter. For Nash, “jail without bail” gave protesters the “opportunity to reach the community and society with a great moral appeal and thus bring about basic changes in people and in society." These dramatic events began to bring light to the fight for racial justice that was beginning to emerge.
On 17 February 1961 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote to Nash, Charles Sherrod, and the other protesters, “You have inspired all of us by such demonstrative courage and faith. It is good to know that there still remains a creative minority who would rather lose in a cause that will ultimately win than to win in a cause that will ultimately lose.” In May, Nash played a crucial role in sustaining Freedom Rides initiated by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). She coordinated the Freedom Rides from Birmingham, Alabama, to Jackson, Mississippi, which were led by Nashville's “nonviolent standing army.”
From her base in Nashville, she coordinated student efforts to continue the rides into Mississippi and served as a liaison between the press and the United States Department of Justice. Attorney General Robert Kennedy became involved and worked to keep the Rides going. Kennedy insisted that his special assistant John Seigenthaler travel to Alabama to get directly involved in the matter. Seigenthaler informed the reluctant Alabama governor that it was the government's duty to protect these citizens during the Freedom Rides.
Nash spoke with Seigenthaler on the phone, and Seigenthaler warned her that the Freedom Rides could result in death and violence for participants. She responded, "We know someone will be killed, but we cannot let violence overcome nonviolence." Tensions developed between King and SNCC members, including Nash, when King refused to participate in the Freedom Rides himself. John Lewis, who had just returned from the Freedom Ride, agreed to continue it, as did other students. They continued the action to a successful conclusion six months later.
Later that year Nash dropped out of college to worked for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) as a field staff person, organizer, strategist, and workshop instructor. After her leadership role in the Freedom Rides, Nash became head of SNCC’s direct action campaigns during the summer of 1961. That same year she married James Bevel, a fellow civil rights activist. The two moved to Jackson, Mississippi, where Nash was later convicted of contributing to the delinquency of minors for teaching them nonviolent tactics.
Given a choice between paying a fine and jail time, Nash opted to serve her sentence despite being pregnant. The judge suspended her sentence rather than face the possibility of negative publicity for sending a pregnant woman to jail. Her ideas were instrumental in initiating the 1963 March on Washington. She and James Bevel worked on the Selma Voting Rights Movement. This helped gain Congressional passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which authorized the federal government to oversee and enforce state practices to ensure that Blacks and other minorities were not prevented from registering and voting.
Dr. King cited especially their contributions to the Selma Voting Rights Movement that eventually led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 1965, SCLC gave its highest award, the Rosa Parks Award, to Nash and James Bevel for their leadership in initiating and organizing the Alabama Project and the Selma Voting Rights Movement. Nash carried on her activism throughout the 1960s, eventually expanding, as many in civil rights did, to the peace and anti-war movements. In 1966 she travelled to North Vietnam as part of an all-female envoy invited by the Vietnam Women’s Union.
In the 70s she began working in Chicago as a housing rights advocate, organizing low-income tenants struggling with basic needs like heat and working fixtures. She continued working for political and social transformation through the 1970s and lectured nationally on the rights of women during the 1980s. An omnipresent voice in the movement for social change, Nash continues to lecture across the country. Nash has continued to believe in the power of nonviolent action to solve conflicts. Decades after she played a critical role in the Civil Rights Movement, Nash remains committed to the principles of nonviolence that have guided her throughout her life. life. For her lifetime achievement fighting for racial justice Diane Nash was rewarded with the nation's highest honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.