“It is simply not possible to list in this short time all the
that “It was Martin Luther King who removed the Black
Trujillo said in presenting the degree. “Nor is it possible
moral and spiritual context. It was on this plane that The
activities and accomplishments of Rev. C.T. Vivian,” Dr. to fully grasp the degree of self-sacrifice, courage, and determination that he possesses. The full impact of the work of C.T. Vivian is of such magnitude that it can only be seen from the perspective of history.”
Vivian was born on July 30, 1924, in Boonville, Missouri, and moved as a child to Macomb, Illinois, where he
graduated from Macomb High School in 1942 and
attended Western Illinois University. He participated in the desegregation of Barton’s Cafeteria in Peoria
in 1947. He studied and prepared for ministry at the
American Baptist College in Nashville, Tennessee, where he learned Mohandas Gandhi’s nonviolent direct-action strategy and joined the Nashville Student
Movement in 1959 – launching what was to become a storied career as an icon of peaceful protest and the Civil Rights Movement.
Vivian helped found the Nashville Christian Leadership
Conference and organized the first sit-ins in that city. In 1960 he led 4,000 peaceful demonstrators to City Hall where he met with Nashville Mayor Ben West. As a
result of that meeting, West publicly declared that racial discrimination is morally wrong. Vivian participated in
the Freedom Rides, in which activists rode interstate
buses into the Southern states to protest their failure to comply with U.S. Supreme Court rulings that banned
segregated public transportation. He worked with King
and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
Movement first confronted the conscience of the nation.” After leaving Dr. King’s Executive Staff, Dr. Vivian trained ministers and developed the urban curriculum for seminaries throughout the nation at the Urban Training
Center in Chicago. He returned to seminary education as the Dean of Divinity at Shaw University Seminary.
In 1977 Vivian founded a consultancy called BASICS,
the Black Action Strategies and Information Center, and in 1979 with Anne Braden of Louisville, Kentucky, he founded the National Anti-Klan Network, which later
became the Center for Democratic Renewal, where
people of all races worked together to combat white supremacist activities. He served in Jesse Jackson’s
presidential campaign in 1984, as national deputy director for clergy. Jackson had been one of Vivian’s first students at the Urban Training Center.
Vivian was an analyst in the 14-part PBS civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize and was the subject of a PBS special, The Healing Ministry of Dr. C.T. Vivian.
President Barack Obama – speaking at Selma’s Brown Chapel on the March 2007, anniversary of
the Selma to Montgomery marches – recognized Vivian in his opening remarks, saying King had referred
to
to ever live.”
Vivian
as
“the
greatest
preacher
serving as the national director of affiliates. After
In 2008, Vivian founded the C.T. Vivian Leadership
1965, Vivian launched an educational program that
On August 8, 2013, he was awarded the Presidential
the Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches in gave college scholarships to 702 Alabama students. That program later became Upward Bound, a federal program to provide college opportunities for lowincome first-generation students.
In 1970, Vivian published Black Power and the American
Myth, the first book about the Civil Rights Movement written by a member of King’s inner circle. In it he wrote
14
struggle from the economic realm and placed it in a
FREEDOMRIDERS
60 Years
Institute to train a new generation of grass-roots leaders. Medal of Freedom by President Obama.
Vivian died on the same day as his friend and fellow civil rights leader, U.S. Representative John Lewis. Peace be to the memories of Rev. Dr. C.T. Vivian and Rep. John Lewis. Provided by https://www.northpark.edu/stories/in-memoriam-of-thereverend-doctor-cordy-tindell-c-t-vivian/.
