On Martin Luther King Jr. Day I was helping out at the MLK event in Lansing Michigan for an audio company. One of the task was to find and mic up “lady in the wheel chair”. Hold on, I am not trying to be disrespectful. When I am working, most of the time I don’t necessarily know “who’s who”. More importantly, do the job and do it well, everyone is treated as equally important. So I did. When “lady in the wheelchair” got on stage, they played an intro video on the screen with the following photograph –

I remember seeing that photo before. I thought: “Wait a minute! This is Diane Nash, the Freedom Rider. That’s awesome.”

Diane Nash is a formidable strategist and leader who served as a primary architect of the nonviolent civil rights movement. As a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), she famously led the Nashville sit-ins. She took over the coordination of the 1961 Freedom Rides when they were nearly halted by white supremacist violence.

She insisted that “the movement must not be stopped by hit-and-run tactics.” Her fearless confrontational style was evident, including a public face-off with Nashville’s mayor. Her pivotal role in the Selma Voting Rights Movement further cemented her legacy. She remains one of the most effective and courageous organizers in American history.