 Bernard
LaFayette, Jr. has been a Civil Rights Movement
activist, minister, educator, lecturer, and
is an authority on the strategy on nonviolent
social change. He co-founded the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960. He was
a leader of the Nashville Movement, 1960 and
on the Freedom Rides, 1961 and the 1965 Selma
Movement. He directed the Alabama Voter Registration
Project in 1962, and he was appointed National
Program Administrator for the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (SCLC) and National Coordinator
of the 1968 Poor Peoples' campaign by Martin
Luther King, Jr. In addition, Dr. LaFayette
has served as Director of Peace and Justice
in Latin America; Chairperson of the Consortium
on Peace Research, Education and Development;
Directory of the PUSH Excel Institute; and minister
of the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Tuskegee,
Alabama. An ordained minister, Dr. LaFayette earned his B.A. from
the American Baptist Theological Seminary
in Nashville, Tennessee, and his Ed.M. and
Ed.D from Harvard University. He has served
on the faculties of Columbia Theological Seminary
in Atlanta and Alabama State University in
Montgomery, where he was Dean of the Graduate
School; he also was principal of Tuskegee
Institute High School in Tuskegee, Alabama
His publications include
the Curriculum and Training Manual for
the Martin Luther King Jr., Nonviolent Community
Leadership Training Program, his doctoral
thesis, Pedagogy for Peace and Nonviolence,
and Campus Ministries and Social Change
in the '60's (Duke Divinity Review) and
The Leaders Manual: A Structured Guide
and Introduction to Kingian Nonviolence with
David Jehnsen. Bernard LaFayette has traveled
extensively to many countries as a lecturer
and consultant on peace and nonviolence.
Dr. LaFayette is President
of the American Baptist College of ABT Seminary
in Nashville, Tennessee; Scholar in Residence
the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent
Social Change in Atlanta, Georgia; Founder
and National President of God-Parents Clubs,
Inc., a national community based program aimed
at preventing the systematic incarceration
of young Black youth; and Pastor of the Progressive
Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee. A
native of Tampa, Florida, Dr. LaFayette is
married to the former Kate Bulls. |
