Diane Nash
From Wagnerpedia
When thinking about the Civil Rights Movement we think of people such as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Rosa Parks. These individuals did share major roles to fighting for equality for the African American community, but Diane Nash is one of those individuals who could be considered an unsung hero for this change in time. Nash showed leadership skills through here childhood, sit-ins and freedom rides.
Childhood
Diane Nash’s childhood played a major role in shaping her as a leader and role model throughout the civil rights movement and present day. Diane Nash was born in 1938, in Chicago, Illinois where she lived a middle class childhood. According to (Preskill, Stephen. Learning. San Francisco) “her parents tried to shield her from the harshness of the world.” Her first real exposure to racism came while attending Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Nash quoted “I really started feeling unjustly limited by not being able to go downtown with a girlfriend and not having lunch, even at someplace like Woolworth’s or Walgreens and not being able to attend a movie theater.” This really disgusted Nash and found that most of her fellow students at that time were very accepting of the idea of segregation. Some people even said “it was the way the world worked.” Nash refused to let herself think like that and refused to allow others to make her feel less superior to the racist white southerners. Therefore, Nash began to show signs of leadership and became a full time activist.
In order to better understand how Diane Nash was such a superior leader looking at the qualities within her personality and protests is essential. According to Bernice McNair Barnett’s “Invisible Southern Black Women Leaders in the Civil Rights Movement: The Triple Constraints of Gender, Race, and Class”, the author interviews many Civil rights leaders including Diane Nash and asks them to rank the most important leadership roles. His findings included 15 different roles ranked in such an order,
- Articulate/express concern and needs of followers
- Define/set goals
- Provide an ideology justfying action
- Formulate tactics and strategies
- Initiate action
- Mobilize/persuade followers
- Raise Money
- Serve as an example to followers and leaders
- Organize/coordinate action
- Control interactions(e.g., conflict)
- Teach/educate/train followers and leaders
- Ability to not alienate colleagues and followers
- Lead or direct action
- Generate Publicity
- Obtain public sympathy and support.
These very Leadership roles are extremely relative to Diane Nash and were used and in her own on going effort with the Civil Rights Movement.
Sit-ins
Therefore, Nash began to find other people at Fisk University who wanted change and fight for equality similar to number 1 on the list. After getting a group of individuals with her common goals, Nash began to plan her form of protest similar to the Greensboro sit-in she wanted to “initiate action” as stated as number 5 on the chart. After a couple of days of the sit ins in restaurants, white southern began to become restless, towards Nash and her colleagues violence had begun towards the protestors. According to the chart numbers 9 and 10 leaders must “coordinate action and control group interaction.” Showing leadership skills, Nash insisted to her followers that non violence was the right way to go about protesting and acts of revenge were not to be made.
Freedom Rides
Her next assignment dealt with the Freedom Rides taking place all over the South. During one of the Freedom Rides going to Jackson, Mississippi, one of the buses filled with protestors became attacked by a fire bomb. Nash goals for the Freedom Ride were to help eliminate interstate segregation on buses which hopefully leading to greater change. Due to the attacks many activist felt it was to dangerous continue the rides. Through Nash’s persistence and determination she persuaded other activist she was going to continue the ride down to Mississippi. Thus, proving the chart again that setting goals and implementation of goals are extremely important.
During the Nashville sit-ins and freedom rides Nash displayed all of the leadership roles stated on the chart, thus proving how great of a leader she really was.
Bibliography
- Invisible Southern Black Women Leaders in the Civil Rights Movement: The Triple Constraints of Gender, Race, and Class
Bernice McNair Barnett Gender and Society, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Jun., 1993), pp. 162-182 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/189576
- Sisters in the struggle: African American women in the civil rights-black power
Bettye Collier-Thomas, Vincent P. Franklin Published by: Library of Congress New York University Press Stable URL : http://books.google.com/books?id=SBK91lpgCIcC&lpg=PR11&ots=zkQ-RNnO77&dq=diane%20nash%20civil%20rights&lr&pg=PR4#v=onepage&q=diane%20nash%20civil%20rights&f=false
- Preskill, Stephen. Learning As A Way of Leading. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,2009
- Diane Nash: “Courage Displaces Fear, Love Transforms”: Civil Rights Activism and the Commitment to Nonviolence
Jennifer A. Stolman Stable URL: http://books.google.com/books?id=ao2DSDX5R3QC&lpg=PA199&dq=diane%20nash%20civil%20rights&lr&pg=PA199#v=onepage&q=diane%20nash%20civil%20rights&f=false
