Civil rights activist, Freedom Rider to speak in Youngstown
Staff report
youngstown
At the invitation of student participants of Sojourn to the Past, civil-rights activist and Freedom Rider Joan Trumpauer Mulholland will be in the city next week for the screening of her documentary, “An Ordinary Hero: The True Story of Joan Trumpauer Mulholland.”
The documentary, produced by her son, Loki Mulholland, will be followed by a discussion with high-school students and the general public. There is no charge to attend this event.
In 1960, while a student at Duke University, Mulholland was involved in the first lunch-counter sit-in in Durham, N.C. She eventually transferred to Tougaloo College in Tougaloo, Miss., becoming the first white student to enroll, joined Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, was active with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Congress on Racial Equality and worked with Medgar Evers, who was the field director for the NAACP in Mississippi at that time.
Mulholland received national attention as a Freedom Rider in Mississippi when she was arrested and spent two months in Parchmon Penitentiary. She also helped to plan and attended the March on Washington in 1963.
Freedom Riders were civil-rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States in 1961 and following years to challenge the nonenforcement of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions finding that segregated public buses are unconstitutional.
Her schedule:
Wednesday, 5 p.m., dinner with Sojourn to the Past students at Richard Brown Memorial United Methodist Church.
Thursday, 9 a.m., East High School; 12:30 p.m., Chaney High School and 7 p.m., Tyler Historical Center; for screening of her documentary, “An Ordinary Hero,” followed by discussion. The public is invited, and there is no charge. Co-sponsors are the Mahoning Valley Historical Society and Youngstown City Schools
Friday, 8:30 a.m., Chestnut Room, Youngstown State University for screening of her documentary, followed by discussion as part of the Stand Against Racism event. Co-sponsors are YWCA, YSU and Youngstown City Schools.
The event is taking place to help raise awareness that racism still exists in the community and that it can no longer be tolerated.
Major sponsors include Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past, Youngstown City Schools, YSU’s Bitonte College of Health and Human Services, the James and Coralie Centofanti Center for the Health and Welfare of Vulnerable Population and the YSU Office of Student Diversity Programs.
To register and show support as a participating organization in the campaign to eliminate racism, visit www.standagainstracism.net/registration.php.
For information, contact Varada Bhide at 330-746-6361 or vbhide@ywcaofyoungstown.org.
The screening of the movie will be followed by a discussion with Trumpauer Mulholland. Mulholland was raised in a Southern, religious home by parents who were segregationists.