Seven Days of 1961
Seven Days of 1961
Firsthand narratives from activists whose courageous actions 60 years ago sparked pivotal civil rights battles against school and business segregation, police brutality and voting exclusion. Many of them were high school or college students risking their lives and futures. On the “Seven Days of 1961” podcast, you’ll hear history from the activists who made it. Read more in-depth stories about thes…Follow the podcast:
1,500 Black college students challenged police in 1961. The Supreme Court took their side.
In 1961, Black college students fought segregation. Four years later, their Supreme Court case secured First Amendment rights for future protesters. Sylvia Copper was a freshman at Southern University when she was suspended for her participation in the historic protest. She knew the risks involved…
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Joyce Barrett led a sit-in at age 22, helping to enact a ban on racial discrimination in Maryland
On Nov. 11, 1961, hundreds of Black and white college students from across the Northeast flocked to Baltimore and Annapolis to conduct sit-ins, aiming to draw attention to segregated restaurants along one of the nation’s most popular travel routes. Frustrated by what they saw as a tepid federal res…
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More than 100 high school students walk out in protest of Brenda Travis' expulsion for activism
Brenda Travis was expelled from high school after serving time in jail for her bus station demonstration. Her Mississippi classmates walked out in support. The students wanted an end to racial violence, segregation and barriers to voting. Their activism helped rally young people across the state to…
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After Freedom Riders barely escaped death, new activists poured into the South for months
In 1961, Hank Thomas barely escaped death attempting to integrate interstate travel accommodations. The struggle galvanized civil rights activists across the South. The Freedom Ride movement almost ended in Alabama on May 14, 1961, when Hank Thomas and six other Riders nearly died on a bus that wh…
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How nine college students challenged segregation at a public library
On March 27, 1961, nine students from Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi risked violence, incarceration and their lives when they staged a “read-in”, at a whites-only public library. All nine were arrested. Ethel Sawyer Adolphe was just 20 years old when she and her fellow protesters became k…
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At age 15, Kenneth Dious was ready to fight for the Black students integrating UGA
Kenneth Dious shares his story of the night he stood guard for a Black student who had just attended her first day of classes at the University of Georgia. He was only 15 years old when word spread in his hometown of Athens, Georgia, that a violent white mob had gathered outside the dorm room of Ch…
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They wanted to integrate their South Carolina town in 1961. The college students were sentenced to a chain gang.
David Williamson Jr. sat in the same seat where he was arrested sixty years ago, to tell us his experience of the day he and nine other men sat at a “whites-only” lunch counter. After being convicted for trespassing, nine of the men chose 30 days of hard labor on a chain gang instead of paying the …
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Trailer: Seven Days of 1961
The civil rights movement was nothing if not a violent struggle. People who fought for racial justice in 1961 take us back in history to the moments when they risked everything on the “Seven Days of 1961” podcast. New episodes drop every Tuesday starting Nov. 2nd. Read more stories in this project …
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