Ex-Freedom Rider sees more work to be done

Love for her mother fueled passion for a better world

CLARKSVILLE - It’s debated whether the full dream of the civil rights movement has been realized, but one woman who has seen it all and lived to tell the story believes it has, although there is more work to be done.

Betty Daniels Rosemond was a Freedom Rider and civil rights activist during the days of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the nonviolent resistance movement. She stood for humane treatment of all people regardless of race or gender.

Having lived through the civil rights movement, Rosemond has several thoughts on the state of racial discrimination today, the form it has taken and how to combat it.

At 77 years old, she travels and shares her account of the attempt to save the soul of America. She will share her experiences at 2 p.m. Sunday at Fifth Ward Missionary Baptist Church in Clarksville.

“I believe that we achieved the changes that we set out to achieve, but we are not there yet,” she said.

In Louisiana, Rosemond was just 19 years old when she joined the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a nonviolent civil rights group founded in 1942.

At 21 years old, she dropped out of Louisiana State University in New Orleans to join the civil rights movement full time. Her love for her mother fueled her passion for a better world achieved through nonviolence.

Rosemond’s mother frequented F.W. Woolworth’s and often ate at the store’s black lunch counter. At the time, lunch counters were segregated by skin color — blacks and whites, with the blacks in the back.

One day, a young student was on television talking about the store’s unethical practices. Rosemond listened intently and was moved by what he was saying.

“It made me realize all of the things that were segregated in New Orleans,” she said. “As a teen, I was just enjoying life and hadn’t taken the time to look around at what was wrong with the picture.”

She wanted her mother to have every opportunity possible.

But CORE was not a program that just anyone could walk onto. Each member had to go through nonviolence training. The training, administered by CORE members, simulated what protesters would experience in the field: intense name-calling, pushing and shoving and verbal death threats.

“They would really get you to the point of wanting to be angry or to retaliate, but you couldn’t do that,” Rosemond said. “Not everyone made it into CORE.”

Those who retaliated could not stand on the front lines because to fight back was to exact hateful behavior, and an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. The only answer was to love their enemy.

Rosemond is concerned groups like Black Lives Matter don’t encourage nonviolent love the way that they should.

“There’s a lot of people who carry that hate,” she said. “All lives matter, and that’s what people need to realize. And it’s not an easy road. The journey has been rough — and it continues.”

Rosemond’s sisters didn’t make CORE, but she picketed Woolworth’s every day after receiving that training.

Her most hurtful memory was of two white teenage boys who assaulted her while she was peacefully picketing the store.

“These ... boys blocked my path and they began to call me names,” she said. “Then, they spat in my face, and that was very hurtful.”

“I still remember that to this day, but as I stood there and looked at them, the Lord said, ‘Forgive them; they know not what they are doing.’ ”

A young minister on the sidelines saw what happened, wiped Rosemond’s face and told her to continue picketing.

“There’s still a lot of hatred in this world,” she said. “There’s not enough love. When I get up some mornings and I turn on the news, it brings tears because nonviolence, it works! The violence has to stop.”

She almost recites the famous children’s hymn “Jesus Loves Me,” saying that God loves all people.

“Red, yellow, black, white, we are all precious in his sight,” she said. “And we have to remember that.”

Recently, a young man questioned her about whether the civil rights movement was as successful as was taught in schools. She firmly believes it is, although the face of racism has changed.

“There are no signs saying ‘white’ or ‘colored,’ but there are actions that let you know,” she said.