Judy Richardson, Betty Garman Robinson, and Dorothy M. Zellner, one-time members of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a leading 1960s civil rights organization, will appear at Loyola University Maryland on Wednesday, Dec. 1 at 6 p.m. in McGuire Hall West. This event is free and open to the public.
Richardson, Robinson, and Zellner served as editors of Hands on the Freedom Plow, a collection of personal reflections by 52 women involved in the SNCC. The organization emerged from a series of student meetings at Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C. in April 1960 and grew into a large organization with many supporters in the North who helped raise funds to support SNCC’s work in the South.
The SNCC played a major role in sit-ins and freedom rides, as well as a leading role in the 1963 March on Washington, Mississippi Freedom Summer, and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. The SNCC’s most significant contribution was in its field work, organizing voter registration drives all over the South, especially in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.
In more recent years, filmmaker Richardson has worked on projects including the PBS documentary series Eyes on the Prize. Robinson, a community organizer, lives in Baltimore and is active in the reemerging grassroots social justice movement. New York City consultant Zellner has provided writing and editing services for the Center for Constitutional Rights and City University of New York Law School.
This event is sponsored by the University’s Women’s Center, communication department, and African and African-American Studies program.
Established in 1852, Loyola University Maryland is a Jesuit comprehensive university comprising Loyola College, its school of arts and sciences; the Sellinger School of Business and Management; and the School of Education. Loyola enrolls 3,700 undergraduate and 2,300 graduate students from across the country and around the world.