MLK Week 2021: Keynote Address feat. Civil Rights Activist Joanne Bland

During her lifetime Joanne Bland has been a witness and participant in some of our nation's most consequential civil rights battles. She began her civil rights activism in the early 60s. The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) activists organized Bland and other area children and teenagers to participate in the Civil Rights Movement. In the front lines of the struggle, the young Bland marched on "Bloody Sunday," "Turn Around Tuesday," and the first leg of the successful March from Selma to Montgomery, witnessing brutal beatings of fellow marchers by police. By the time she was 11 years old Bland had been arrested 13 times. Ms. Bland's early involvement in the struggle against "Jim Crow", American apartheid, has been the foundation for her civil and human rights work throughout her life.