Diane Nash
b. 1938
We know someone will be killed, but we cannot let violence overcome nonviolence.
Diane Nash was a student at Fisk University in Nashville when she became a leader of the 1960 lunch counter sit-ins, one of the first wins of the civil rights movement. In February 1961 she joined the Rock Hill Nine in South Carolina, refusing bail after a sit-in, and spent thirty days in jail. In May 1961, when the Freedom Rides were attacked in Alabama and risked ending, she insisted they continue and coordinated the riders.
In 1962 she was arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, on a charge of contributing to the delinquency of minors for encouraging young people to take part in the Freedom Rides. She was four months pregnant and faced up to two years in prison. She was sentenced to ten days. In July 2022 President Biden awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.