Bernard Lafayette

Civil rights activist, minister, educator

• Born: July 29, 1940
• Birthplace: Tampa, Florida

Significance: Bernard LaFayette, Jr., (sometimes spelled Lafayette) is a civil rights activist, educator, and ordained minister. He helped lead Freedom Riders, a group of Black students who protested segregation in the 1960s by making bus trips around the South. He was a close associate of Martin Luther King, Jr., and U.S. Congressman John Lewis.

Background

Bernard LaFayette, Jr., was born in Tampa, Florida, in 1940. He grew up in Tampa, and said he knew as child that social justice work would be an important part of his life. As a young person, he witnessed abuse against his grandmother in a segregated streetcar system and said he was “filled with an emotional feeling that (he) would never forget,” according to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) website. He said he could not wait to grow up and he joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) when he was twelve years old.

LaFayette moved to Nashville in 1958 to study at the American Baptist Theological Seminary. As a freshman, he began attending weekly meetings organized by James Lawson, a representative of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Lawson had been in contact with Martin Luther King, Jr., during the Montgomery bus boycott and taught Lawson and other students nonviolent protest techniques. In 1959, Lawson and his friends started organizing sit-ins at segregated restaurants and businesses. He also helped form the SNCC in 1960. Prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Boynton v. Virginia, which declared segregation in interstate travel facilities unconstitutional, LaFayette and classmate John Lewis (who would later become a U.S. representative), boarded an interstate bus and sat at the front, refusing to move.

LaFayette earned a bachelor’s degree from American Baptist Theological Seminary. In 1972, he earned his master’s from Harvard University. He earned his doctorate from Harvard in 1974.

Life’s Work

Soon, LaFayette became very active in the civil rights movement. In 1961, he became involved with the Freedom Riders, who protested segregation by making bus trips around the South. That year, he was beaten badly as a Freedom Rider in Montgomery, Alabama, when an angry mob of Ku Klux Klan members surrounded the group and launched an attack that was ignored by police. King met with LaFayette and other group members. He then negotiated with the White House and the Department of Justice to ensure their protection in Montgomery along with a military escort for the remainder or their journey to Mississippi. LaFayette was arrested in Mississippi in 1961 for participating in the rides. He served forty days in the Parchment Penitentiary and was arrested again upon his release for delinquency of minors because the students he recruited to ride the buses were under eighteen years old.

In 1962, he became director of SNCC’s Alabama Voter Registration Project, and in 1963 he and his wife Colia Liddell moved to Selma, Alabama. There, he ran voter registration clinics and worked with local organizations like the Dallas County Voters League. He was severely beaten outside his home in Selma on June 12, 1963. In 1967, King hired LaFayette as the national program administrator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). In 1968, he became the national coordinator for the Poor People’s Campaign.

LaFayette also served in a number of roles at academic institutions. After teaching at a number of universities, he became president of the American Baptist Theological Seminary in 1993. In 1998, he served as the first director of the University of Rhode Island’s Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies. In this role, LaFayette led education and training programs at the state, national, and international levels, establishing nonviolence centers in Colombia, the Middle East, South Asia, the Philippines, Mexico, and South Africa. In January 2009, he accepted an appointment as a distinguished scholar at Emory University in Atlanta. He went on to work with the university’s Religion, Conflict, and Peacebuilding Program.

Other academic institutions LaFayette worked for include Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia; and Alabama State University in Montgomery, Alabama. At Alabama State University, he served as dean of the Graduate School. LaFayette was also principal of Tuskegee Institute High School in Tuskegee, Alabama, and a teaching fellow at Harvard University. He has contributed to a number of publications including Curriculum and Training Manual for the Martin Luther King, Jr.

Impact

Many historians regard LaFayette as an unsung hero of the 1960s Civil Rights era. A street in Selma, Alabama, is named after him, and on May 14, 2022, the city announced Dr. Bernard LaFayette Jr. Day. In a speech, the mayor of Selma said that LaFayette paved the way for other Black leaders like President Barack Obama, Vice President Kamala Harris, and State Senator Malika Fortier. On May 13, 2022, U.S. Representative Terri Sewell of Alabama spoke on the House Floor to honor the contributions of LaFayette.

As of 2023, he continued to contribute as an educator and speaker. In February 2023, he spoke at the launch of a collaboration between Belmont University and Fisk University in Tennessee. He served as president of the American Baptist Theological Seminary and was the first director of the Peace Education Program at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota. He also served as a scholar-in-residence at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta.

Personal Life

LaFayette married Kate Bulls. He has two sons, James and Bernard LaFayette, III. He was previously married to fellow activist Colia Liddell. He was also good friends with fellow civil rights activist John Lewis, who went on to become a U.S. congressman. The two were roommates in college.

Bibliography

“Bernard Lafayette: Activist & Organizer.” Kunhardt Film Foundation, www.kunhardtfilmfoundation.org/interviewees/bernard-lafayette. Accessed 19 June 2023.

“Bernard LaFayette.” Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, snccdigital.org/people/bernard-lafayette/. Accessed 19 June 2023.

“Bernard LaFayette oral history project.” The American Folklife Center, 26 Sept. 2018, www.loc.gov/folklife/civilrights/survey/view‗collection.php?coll‗id=949. Accessed 19 June 2023.

“Center Founder Bernard LaFayette, Jr., Ed.D.” University of Rhode Island Center for Nonviolence & Peace Studies, web.uri.edu/nonviolence/about/history/center-founder-bernard-lafayette/. Accessed 19 June 2023.

“Dr. Bernard LaFayette.” Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth, and Reconciliation, 2021, www.selmacenterfornonviolence.org/team-1/dr.-bernard-lafayette,-jr. Accessed 19 June 2023.

Jones, James. “Dr. Bernard Lafayette Jr.: ‘I’m honored and thankful’.” Selma Times, 1 May 2022, www.selmatimesjournal.com/2022/05/01/dr-bernard-lafayette-jr-im-honored-and-thankful/. Accessed 19 June 2023.

“LaFayette, Bernard.” Stanford University, The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/lafayette-bernard. Accessed 19 June 2023.

“Rep. Sewell Honors the Rev. Dr. Bernard LaFayette, Jr. on the House Floor in Advance of Selma’s ‘Dr. Bernard LaFayette Jr. Day.” U.S. Congresswoman Terri Sewell, 13 May 2022, sewell.house.gov/2022/5/rep-sewell-honors-rev-dr-bernard-lafayette-jr-house-floor-advance-selma. Accessed 19 June 2023.

Wegner, Rachel. “Civil rights leader Bernard Lafayette to help launch Fisk-Belmont social justice initiative. What to know about his legacy.” The Tennessean, 8 Feb. 2023, www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/2023/02/08/civil-rights-leader-bernard-lafayette-to-speak-at-fisk-belmont-nashville-event/69881685007/. Accessed 19 June 2023.