'60s civil rights activist
to speak at Purdue
By Matt Lindner
Assistant
Campus Editor
David Fankhauser, a former white freedom rider
of the '60s civil rights movement and current professor of biology and
chemistry at Cleremont College in Cincinnati, Ohio will be coming to
give a speech at 7 p.m. on Monday in Loeb Playhouse.
Dorothy Simpson-Taylor, director of the Diversity
Resource Office, said that there has been a lot of interest in hearing
Fankhauser speak.
"There are many on campus that want to hear him
share his experiences because of his role during such a controversial
time of history," she said. "A lot of faculty members are recommending
that students should attend this because he experienced the civil rights
movement first-hand and has incorporated a lot of what he learned during
that time into his everyday life."
Among other things, Fankhauser once rode through
the South on Greyhound buses to protest segregation of blacks and whites
in public places.
In addition to Fankhauser's speech, the Jahari
Dance Troupe, PMO Bell Choir and Human Relations Interactive Theatre
Ensemble, or HumanRITE, will perform as well.
HumanRITE will give an original performance that
was written specifically for this occasion. It is comprised of newspaper
articles about freedom riders and bus boycotts from around the time
that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was alive.
Katherine Burke, director of HumanRITE, said that
the goal of the performance is to help others understand what this period
of history was like.
"What we wanted to do was go back and relive those
moments that were so pivotal in the civil rights movement," said Burke.
"Everyone that was involved in the movement did something that was very
brave and risky and brought a great deal of attention to something that
most people had turned their backs on."
Event organizers are expecting in excess of 500
people to attend the event, which is free and open to the public.
Simpson-Taylor said that Fankhauser and others
like him have an important place in history, which is all the more reason
that students should come and hear what he has to say.
"Dr. King's vision about living in a community
where people are judged by their character and not the color of their
skin is exemplified by (Fankhauser) and other college students of his
time," said Simpson-Taylor. "Because they felt obligated to join with
black college students in demonstrating that all should be allowed in
public facilities regardless of race, the civil rights movement was
a success."
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