Civil rights giant Bernard Lafayette kicks off new Belmont-Fisk Social Justice Collaborative

Sleeping on the floor of the Birmingham bus station, the Rev. Bernard Lafayette Jr. was awakened with a splash of cold water. Standing above him: members of the Ku Klux Klan.

Though a scary moment for Lafayette and his fellow Freedom Riders, who in 1961 aimed to desegregate interstate buses and bus terminals, Lafayette thanked the hooded man.

“Because who would want to be asleep at a bus station in the night?” Lafayette told a crowd Thursday night at the Nashville Public Library, drawing a hearty laugh.

“Because who would want to be asleep at a bus station in the night?” Lafayette told a crowd Thursday night, drawing a hearty laugh from the audience.

The balance of seriousness and humor marked his tone during the inaugural event of the Belmont-Fisk Social Justice Collaborative. Lafayette, who became part of Martin Luther King Jr.’s inner circle, served as the event's keynote speaker, recounting his days as a civil rights leader in the 1960s.

“When I think of Black history, I think of social justice pioneers who paved the way for all of us,” said Robert Carr Jr., vice president of Academic Affairs at Fisk University.

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With funding from the Rechter family — a philanthropic endeavor that started with the late Nashville businessman and philanthropist Ben Rechter — Fisk and Belmont launched the program to bring together students at both universities to learn more about the region’s civil rights history. Together, Carr said the students will tackle some of this generation's great challenges, including systematic barriers of healthcare, education, housing, jobs and the criminal justice system.

Students enroll in a joint course involving interviews with social justice advocates, trips to local museums and libraries and a retreat to Black Mountain, North Carolina. The present cohort of 25 students will create a commemorative website, e-book, videos and a digital pop-up museum exhibit.

“May this be the beginning of a deeper set of relations between Fisk and Belmont, a life and witness in Nashville and this Middle Tennessee region in ways that will enable all of us to be hope dealers and signs of hope for others,” said Belmont President Greg Jones on Thursday evening.

That message of hope was what Lafayette sought to leave with the audience, which included Belmont and Fisk students. He shared how as a student activist in 1960, he desegregated buses and movie theaters in Nashville alongside figures such as John Lewis.

“I think it’s very important for us to realize that Nashville did so many things in such a short period of time,” Lafayette said. “It (Nashville) was a hotbed for change.”

Lafayette arrived in Nashville from Florida in 1958 to study at American Baptist College, then known as American Baptist Theological Seminary. Lafayette became an ordained Baptist minister and later in life served as president of American Baptist College.

Lafayette co-founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1960, joined the Freedom Rides in 1961 and a year later, directed SNCC’s Alabama Voter Registration Project. He soon became involved with King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, rising to become an SCLC program coordinator for King in 1967.

But Lafayette, now a Selma, Alabama, resident, didn’t return to Nashville to only share anecdotes of the past.

Channel 5 meteorologist Lelan Statom, the host of Thursday’s event, asked Lafayette about advice for young people getting involved in activism.

Lafayette said they should focus on coalition building, listen to and respect differences among coalition members, include women in leadership of movements and “be exposed to all the different areas of knowledge that you can.”

Lafayette said one of the reason’s King’s nonviolence movement was so effective was its leadership included people with different areas of expertise.

“You need to be able to know how things fit together,” Lafayette said. “Don’t just look at the North Star. Look at the constellation.”

Liam Adams covers religion for The Tennessean. Reach him at ladams@tennessean.com or on Twitter @liamsadams.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Bernard Lafayette Belmont Fisk Social Justice Collaborative