{"id":1091,"date":"2012-01-17T19:46:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-17T19:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebzbproductions.ebzb.org\/former-freedom-rider-urges-students-to-march-on\/"},"modified":"2012-01-17T19:46:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-17T19:46:00","slug":"former-freedom-rider-urges-students-to-march-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebzb.org\/WPress\/2012\/01\/17\/former-freedom-rider-urges-students-to-march-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Freedom Rider urges students to march on"},"content":{"rendered":"

Serena Ebhardt will play Joan Trumpauer Mulholland in The Parchman Hour…
\nLearn about the Freedom Riders… <\/p>\n

\nhttp:\/\/www.heraldsun.com\/view\/full_story\/17187679\/article-Former-Freedom-Rider-urges-students-to-march-on-<\/a><\/p>\n

\nFormer Freedom Rider urges students to march on
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\n21 hrs ago<\/span> | 535 views | 0 \"0<\/a> | 3<\/span> \"3<\/a> | \"email<\/span><\/a> | \"print\"<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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By Melody Guyton Butts<\/p>\n

mbutts@heraldsun.com; 419-6684<\/p>\n

DURHAM
\n \u2013 A young white woman of privilege, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland didn\u2019t
\nface the prejudices of her darker-skinned contemporaries in the Jim Crow
\n South. She wasn\u2019t prohibited from sitting at lunch counters. She wasn\u2019t
\n relegated to substandard drinking fountains because of the color of her
\n skin. She wasn\u2019t forced to fight her way through angry mobs on her way
\nto school. <\/p>\n

But Mulholland, the daughter of a strict segregationist, knew it wasn\u2019t right. <\/p>\n

\u201cI
\n could see that we did not practice what we preached, and I resolved, in
\n the era of mass resistance, that when I had the chance to help change
\nthings, I would seize the moment,\u201d she told a standing-room-only crowd
\ngathered for Carolina Friends School\u2019s Martin Luther King Jr. Day
\ncelebration Monday.<\/p>\n

Her chance came as a student at Duke
\nUniversity in the early 1960s, when she joined the picket line of black
\nstudents from what was then North Carolina College (now N.C. Central
\nUniversity). That led to her involvement in sit-ins, voter-registration
\ndrives and, perhaps most famously, the Freedom Rides, an effort by
\nactivists to test interstate travel desegregation laws in the South.<\/p>\n

When
\n she arrived in Jackson, Miss., as part of the June 4, 1961, Mississippi
\n Freedom Ride, Mulholland, then 19, was arrested. She ended up spending
\nmore than two months in the Parchman Farm prison. Her story is among
\nthose chronicled in the PBS documentary \u201cFreedom Riders,\u201d available
\nonline at http:\/\/to.pbs.org\/mP8dX8.<\/p>\n

The documentary inspired the
\nfolks planning Carolina Friends\u2019 annual MLK celebration to invite her to
\n speak before students, parents and community members on Monday.<\/p>\n

Event
\n emcee Thomas Patterson, director of youth programs in Duke University\u2019s
\n Continuing Studies department, said Mulholland\u2019s story was also his
\nown.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my story because I know what it\u2019s like to go to separate schools,\u201d he began.<\/p>\n

He
\n recalled busloads of white kids making obscene gestures as they passed
\nby him and his siblings and having to drink water from a pipe protruding
\n from the wall, while whites had the luxury of a \u201cpearl white, enamel
\nwater fountain.\u201d<\/p>\n

He thanked Mulholland for risking her life in the name of equality.<\/p>\n

In
\n addition to Mulholland\u2019s address, Monday\u2019s program included
\nperformances by the school\u2019s drumming ensemble, community chorus and
\nchildren\u2019s choir and a dance presentation by upper school students. Also
\n performing were actors Doug Bynum and Kashif Powell, who presented a
\nscene from GoingBarefoot\u2019s production of \u201cThe Parchman Hour,\u201d which
\ncelebrates the work of the Freedom Riders. <\/p>\n

Carolina Friends was
\nfounded in 1962 as one of the first schools in the South to model racial
\n integration as a core principle. As a private Quaker school, the school
\n stresses the importance of peaceful conflict resolution and the
\nimportance of service, in alignment with King\u2019s ideals. <\/p>\n

While
\nmost schools close for the MLK holiday, Carolina Friends each year opens
\n its doors for half a day on the third Monday in January to honor the
\ncivil rights leader\u2019s legacy through celebration and service. Before the
\n all-school assembly, students sorted books for a Book Harvest drive,
\ncollected nonperishable foods for a food drive and engaged in civil
\nrights-focused educational activities.<\/p>\n

Mulholland urged those
\nassembled to celebrate the legacy of King by honoring not just the civil
\n rights leader, but \u201cthe thousands, even millions, who were and are part
\n of his crusade for justice and nonviolence in the world: the Negro
\ncitizens of Montgomery who would not ride buses, the children who walked
\n through mobs to integrate public schools, the college students who by
\nthe hundreds sat at lunch counters, waiting to be served.\u201d<\/p>\n

They
\nwere \u201cordinary, everyday people just like you\u201d who saw things that
\nneeded to be done and followed the lead of King, she told the crowd. <\/p>\n

\u201cToday,
\n we are still facing problems \u2013 war, discrimination of many kids,
\nethnic, racial, religious, gender, gender orientation, just for
\nstarters,\u201d Mulholland said. \u201cWe face poverty, health care issues and
\nmuch more. And you, today\u2019s students, are the future. Learn from the
\npast. Be inspired by Dr. King, and apply it to your own life. And march
\nforward until victory is truly won.\u201d<\/p>\n

EbzB Productions – Your World Is Our Stage!
\nhttp:\/\/www.ebzb.org<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Serena Ebhardt will play Joan Trumpauer Mulholland in The Parchman Hour… Learn about the Freedom Riders… http:\/\/www.heraldsun.com\/view\/full_story\/17187679\/article-Former-Freedom-Rider-urges-students-to-march-on- Former Freedom Rider urges students to march on 21 hrs ago | 535 views | 0  | 3  |  |  By Melody Guyton Butts mbutts@heraldsun.com; 419-6684 DURHAM \u2013 A young white woman of privilege, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland didn\u2019t face the prejudices of her darker-skinned contemporaries in the Jim Crow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebzb.org\/WPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebzb.org\/WPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebzb.org\/WPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebzb.org\/WPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebzb.org\/WPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ebzb.org\/WPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1091\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebzb.org\/WPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebzb.org\/WPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebzb.org\/WPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}