Photo by Deb Gau SMSU professor Jeff Kolnick talked about the history of the 1960s Freedom Ride movement, and welcomed Freedom Riders Dion Diamond and Joan Browning to the university on Wednesday night.
MARSHALL — Dion Diamond and Joan Browning were only college students when they joined the movement to end racial segregation in the U.S. In the 1960s, they both participated in sit-ins at whites-only lunch counters, and joined the Freedom Rides protesting segregation on buses and trains.
But as Diamond and Browning shared their stories at Southwest Minnesota State University on Wednesday, they said they didn’t want to focus only on themselves.
“What we’re doing here tonight is really about you,” Browning told the audience, which was a mix of university students and area community members. Browning and Diamond encouraged young people to work to make the world a better place.
“Everyone, everyone, can contribute something,” Diamond said.
Diamond and Browning spoke about their experiences in the Civil Rights movement at both SMSU and Minnesota West Community and Technical College in Worthington this week.
In May 1961, Diamond was part of a Freedom Ride with two buses traveling from Montgomery, Alabama, to Jackson, Mississippi. While the Supreme Court had ruled in 1960 that segregation on interstate transportation like buses was unconstitutional, buses and terminals were still segregated in many places, especially in the South, said SMSU professor Jeff Kolnick. Both Black and white Freedom Riders tested out the Supreme Court’s ruling by traveling in segregated areas.
On the May 24, 1961 ride, members of the National Guard and state police from both Alabama and Mississippi traveled along with the buses for protection, Diamond said. But in Jackson, “As soon as we stepped off the bus, we were arrested,” he said. Diamond spent several months in Mississippi’s Parchman Penitentiary after the ride.
Browning participated in a Freedom Ride in December 1961.
“We were the last Freedom Riders,” she said. On the Dec. 10, 1961 ride, a group of Black and white riders took a passenger train to Albany, Georgia. When the group arrived in Albany, they were also arrested and jailed.
Diamond and Browning took questions from the audience. In response to one audience question, Diamond said there were both encouraging and discouraging things about the current political climate in the U.S.
“It’s encouraging you’re here,” he told the audience. But Americans also seem to be more divided now than they were a few years ago, he said.
“I see us regressing. I don’t know if people are afraid to speak up,” Diamond said. “There are too many people who are silent.”
SMSU students also asked what they could do to help fight injustice and educate other people. Browning shared some things she learned from Ella Baker, a leader and mentor for members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a group that organized sit-ins and Freedom Rides. Browning said Baker taught students that they didn’t have to be rich, powerful or famous to change the world. Instead, they could look at what they could do right where they lived.
“It has to be something you’re really serious about,” Browning said. She said Baker taught students to find other people with the same concerns and work together. “The secret is in small groups who are really committed to each other,” she said.
Diamond also urged students to remember that change is built on past movements, too. For example, the first ride to challenge segregated transportation was in 1947, well before the Freedom Ride movement.
“You hope whatever you do pushes that a wee bit forward,” he said.
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