Raymond Arsenault | |
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Born | Hyannis, Massachusetts, U.S. | January 6, 1948
Alma mater | Princeton University Brandeis University |
Occupation(s) | Academic, historian |
Employer | University of South Florida |
Known for | Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice (2006) |
Spouse | Kathleen Hardee Arsenault |
Children | 2 daughters |
Website | Raymond Arsenault |
Raymond Ostby Arsenault (born January 6, 1948) is an American historian and academic in Florida, United States of America. He has taught at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg campus since 1980, co-founding the Florida Studies Program (with Gary Mormino). [1] [2] Arsenault is a specialist in the political, social, and environmental history of the American South.
Arsenault wrote about the 1961 Freedom Rides in a 2006 book, Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice . His work on this critical period in the civil rights movement became the basis of a two-hour 2010 television documentary film, Freedom Riders . [3] He appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show in an episode dedicated to Freedom Riders. [4] [5] He has been awarded the Frank L. and Harriet C. Owsley Award of the Southern Historical Association and the 2006 PSP Award for Excellence Honorable Mention History & American Studies. [6]
Raymond Arsenault was born in Hyannis, Massachusetts, in 1948. He holds a B.A. degree in History from Princeton University (1969, magna cum laude), and an M.A. (1974) and PhD in American History from Brandeis University (1981). [7] [6]
Arsenault has taught at the University of Minnesota, Brandeis University, and a Universite d’Angers in France, where he was a Fulbright Lecturer in 1984–85. He has served as a consultant for numerous museums and public institutions, including the National Park Service, the National Civil Rights Museum, the Rosa Parks Library and Museum at Troy University in Alabama, [8] and the United States Information Agency.
He has taught at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg campus, since 1980 and is the John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History and was founding co-director of the Florida Studies Program (with Gary Mormino). [1] [2]
He is married to Kathleen Hardee Arsenault, retired university library dean, and the couple have two daughters, Amelia and Anne. [6]
Freddie Lee Shuttlesworth was an American minister and civil rights activist who led fights against segregation and other forms of racism, during the civil rights movement. He often worked with Martin Luther King Jr., although they did not always agree on tactics and approaches.
Wyatt Tee Walker was an African-American pastor, national civil rights leader, theologian, and cultural historian. He was a chief of staff for Martin Luther King Jr., and in 1958 became an early board member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He helped found a Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) chapter in 1958. As executive director of the SCLC from 1960 to 1964, Walker helped to bring the group to national prominence. Walker sat at the feet of his mentor, BG Crawley, who was a Baptist Minister in Brooklyn, NY and New York State Judge.
The Journey of Reconciliation, also called "First Freedom Ride", was a form of nonviolent direct action to challenge state segregation laws on interstate buses in the Southern United States. Bayard Rustin and 18 other men and women were the early organizers of the two-week journey that began on April 9, 1947. The participants started their journey in Washington, D.C., traveled as far south as North Carolina, before returning to Washington, D.C.
Bernard LafayetteJr. is an American civil rights activist and organizer, who was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement. He played a leading role in early organizing of the Selma Voting Rights Movement; was a member of the Nashville Student Movement; and worked closely throughout the 1960s movements with groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the American Friends Service Committee.
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Morgan v. Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional. The Southern states had ignored the rulings and the federal government did nothing to enforce them. The first Freedom Ride left Washington, D.C., on May 4, 1961, and was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans on May 17.
Charles Person is an African-American civil rights activist who participated in the 1961 Freedom Rides. He was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. Following his 1960 graduation from David Tobias Howard High School, he attended Morehouse College. Person was the youngest Freedom Rider on the original Congress of Racial Equality Freedom Ride. His memoir Buses Are a Comin': Memoir of a Freedom Rider was published by St. Martin's Press in 2021.
William E. Harbour was an American civil rights activist who participated in the Freedom Rides. He was one of several youth activists involved in the latter actions, along with John Lewis, William Barbee, Paul Brooks, Charles Butler, Allen Cason, Catherine Burks, and Lucretia Collins.
Edward Norval "Ed" Blankenheim was an American civil rights activist and one of the original 13 Freedom Riders who rode Greyhound buses in 1961 as part of the Civil Rights Movement, in an effort to desegregate transit systems.
Genevieve Hughes Houghton was known as one of three female participants in the original 13-person CORE Freedom Rides.
Freedom Riders is a 2010 American historical documentary film, produced by Firelight Media for the twenty-third season of American Experience on PBS. The film is based in part on the book Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice by historian Raymond Arsenault. Directed by Stanley Nelson, it marked the 50th anniversary of the first Freedom Ride in May 1961 and first aired on May 16, 2011. It was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The film was also featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show program titled, Freedom Riders: 50th Anniversary. Nelson was helped in the making of the documentary by Arsenault and Derek Catsam, an associate professor at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin.
Mary Salynn (Selyn) McCollum was the only white female Freedom Rider during the leg from Nashville, Tennessee to Birmingham, Alabama on May 17, 1961.
Jack Emerson Davis is an American author and distinguished professor of history in Florida. He holds the Rothman Family Endowed Chair in the Humanities and teaches environmental history and sustainability studies at the University of Florida. In 2002-2003, he taught on a Fulbright award at the University of Jordan in Amman, Jordan.
Meryle Joy Reagon is an American civil rights movement activist born in 1942. In June 1961, she participated in a Freedom Ride from Montgomery, Alabama to Jackson, Mississippi. She is also the former wife of another Freedom Rider, Frederick Leonard and sister of Cordell Reagon.
Catherine Burks-Brooks was an American civil rights movement activist, teacher, social worker, jewelry retailer, and newspaper editor.
Benjamin Elton Cox was an American civil rights movement activist and preacher. Cox participated in the 1961 Freedom Riders protest and was interviewed in the 2010 film of the same name.
The Greyhound Bus Station at 219 N. Lamar St., Jackson, Mississippi, was the site of many arrests during the May 1961 Freedom Rides of the Civil Rights Movement. The Art Deco building has been preserved and currently functions as an architect's office.
Sara Jane "Sally" Rowley was an American jewelry-maker and civil rights activist.
Bruce Carver Boynton was an American civil rights leader who inspired the Freedom Riders movement and advanced the cause of racial equality by a landmark supreme court case Boynton v. Virginia.
John Robert Zellner is an American civil rights activist. He graduated from Huntingdon College in 1961 and that year became a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) as its first white field secretary. Zellner was involved in numerous civil rights efforts, including nonviolence workshops at Talladega College, protests for integration in Danville, Virginia, and organizing Freedom Schools in Greenwood, Mississippi, in 1964. He also investigated the murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner that summer.
Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice is a 2006 non-fiction book by Raymond Arsenault, published by Oxford University Press.