Fifty years ago, Nashville students orchestrated sit-ins in the downtown area to fight for desegregation. This Saturday, Vanderbilt students will gather to commemorate the anniversary of the historical movement.
The first Nashville Intercollegiate Activism Conference will try to inspire students from across Tennessee to return to the roots of student activism in light of the sit-in movement’s success.
The event will bring together students from Vanderbilt, Lipscomb, Tennessee State, Fisk, The University of Memphis and Middle Tennessee State University to hear student and faculty panels as well as to participate in a political activism fair. The event will end with a tribute to the Nashville sit-ins and a keynote speech from John Seigenthaler, former publisher of The Tennessean, co-founder of USA Today, founder of the First Amendment Center and Freedom Forum and former adviser to senator Robert Kennedy.
Matthew Taylor, a sophomore and co-president of the Vanderbilt Political Review, decided to dedicate The Vanderbilt Political Review's Activism Conference to a celebration of the Nashville sit-ins after taking a class with Rev. James Lawson, a leading figure in the local nonviolence movement in the 1960s. Taylor said he hopes the message of the conference will inspire a new generation of activists in the Nashville community.
“The intended purpose of the conference is to remove the stereotype that our generation isn’t interested in political activism,” Taylor said.
Bryann DaSilva, a sophomore and vice president of Vanderbilt Service and Public Policy, will sit on a student panel about international activism.
“College students are in a unique position to be learning about the world and things that they never knew about before, and so they have all this energy and zeal that they can use to achieve something,” DaSilva said.
Taylor emphasized the importance of the Nashville community has had on activism.
“The conference is to highlight what Nashville has done and contributed, so we want to show students that there is a lot to do here,” Taylor said.
VPR, The Commons, Vanderbilt Student Government and LEAD sponsor the event, which is VSG’s co-sponsorship for February. Wyatt Smith, president of VSG, will be moderating the faculty panel dealing with the future of activism.
“I think it was important for us to award this co-sponsorship of the month to help support, recognize and facilitate a program that would spread awareness about the importance of the civil rights era and the ways it continues into today from an activism perspective,” Smith said.
The conference will be held this Saturday, Feb. 27, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. in The Commons Multipurpose Room.
