On Monday evening, June 10, ICNY supporters gather to celebrate “The Courage of Conviction – Then & Now” and to honor five distinguished individuals, including C.T. Vivian, Veteran Civil Rights Activist & Colleague of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Reverend Dr. Vivian is a respected and revered civil rights activist who continues to vigorously speak out for racial justice and democracy. His life’s contributions have been the subject of the PBS documentaries “Eyes on the Prize,” and “Freedom Riders.” Vivian has also appeared on “Oprah” and “The Montel Williams Show.” He is the subject of a biography, Challenge and Change (Atlanta: Dreamkeeper Press, 1993) by Lydia Walker, and the author of Black Power and the American Myth (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970), the first book on the civil rights movement by a member of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s staff.
Vivian’s civil rights actions date back to the 1940’s, when he attended Western Illinois University. As vice president of the local NAACP chapter, he led demonstrations that resulted in the hiring of blacks at the Caterpillar Tractor Company and the opening of a restaurant to serve blacks in Peoria, Illinois.
Vivian was ordained as a Baptist minister from the American Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1959, he helped found the Nashville Christian Leadership Conference (an affiliate of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference) and organized the first lunch counter sit-ins in Nashville in 1960 and the first civil rights march in 1961. That same year, Vivian rode the first “Freedom Bus” into Jackson, Mississippi where he was arrested on the formal charge of breach of peace and imprisoned at Parchman State Prison Farm. Soon after, he went on to work alongside Rev. Dr. King and participated in every action with him after the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott in 1955-56, including protests in Birmingham, Selma, Chicago, Nashville, St. Augustine, and the March on Washington, all leading to the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964.
His leadership positions have included: Chairman of the Southern Organizing Committee Education Fund, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Black Action Strategies and Information Center, Center for Democratic Renewal, and the black-owned Capitol City Bank and Trust Company. In 2008, Vivian founded and incorporated the C.T. Vivian Leadership Institute to create a model leadership culture in Atlanta. The institute was credited in saving Morris Brown College, a more than 130-year old historically black institute of higher education in Atlanta, Georgia, from closing. Vivian currently serves as the national president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Here is a video taken on Feb. 15, 1965 in Selma, Alabama, when Dr. Vivian attempted to register voters:
ICNY cordially invites you to join us in honoring Rev. Dr. Vivian on June 10. Other JMP awardees on June 10 will be:
- Sister Pat Farrell, OSF, Vice President, Sisters of St. Francis of Dubuque & Past President, Leadership Conference of Women Religious
- Bill Moyers, Host, PBS Bill Moyers Journal
- Judith Moyers, CEO, Public Affairs Television
- Russell Simmons, Chairman, Foundation for Ethnic Understanding
