Love is Loud: How Diane Nash Led the Civil Rights Movement
by Sandra Neil Wallace
illustrated by Bryan Collier
illustrated by Bryan Collier
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00love is loud, how diane nash led the civil rights movement, written by sandra neal wallace,
00:17illustrated by brian collier, the non-violent movement, is based upon and motivated by love,
00:23diane nash, for the women who led the civil rights movement, and for susan finley who
00:28also led with love, snw, to all young people, i encourage them to love the world enough
00:34to fight for an excesory change, love out loud, bc, you arrive in the spring of 1938
00:40on the south side, when chicago's leaves unfurl emerald green like your baby girl eyes, celebration
00:46jubilation, your parents baptize beautiful honey brown you, diane judith nash, their
00:52first chicago born, no way they'll raise you down in the segregated south like they were,
00:57true, chicago has sides, but in your house, your parents don't talk about divides hoping
01:02you know only love, at first it weeks, until you're 4 and the world war changes everything,
01:08your dad joins the army and your mom works all day punching codes into a machine, so
01:13where does that leave you, fearful tearful, you miss their company, but grandmother bolton
01:18from tennessee showers you with love, wonderful and wise, she looks into your emerald eyes
01:23and gives you gems of wisdom, you are more precious than all the diamonds in the world,
01:28she'd say stroking your hair, as you grow in the rhythm and glow of her love, you know
01:32it must be true, your high school includes everyone, it splashes rainbows of color across
01:38your classes, in books, you see signs of separation but you don't feel it, for teenage you beauty
01:44contests are cool even if charm school won't accept negros, refusing is confusing but you
01:49don't let segregation touch you, then you move south to grandmother's tennessee and
01:54fisk university, your nashville friends take you to the fair where the air is filled with
01:59sticky sugar smells of cotton candy, and suddenly you see it up close between roller coasters
02:04and corn dog fryers bubble boiling two signs for bathrooms, white and colored, cheeks burning
02:10from the heat of humiliation now you feel the string of segregation, your friends tell
02:14you it's always been this way, they say to go along to get along, but you won't follow
02:19rules if the rules are wrong, your grandmother raised you with the rhythm of love and it
02:23echoes in your heart, proud to be beautiful honey brown, no way a sign could say that
02:28you are less, defiant determined, tough as candy apple coating on the dusty midway that
02:33night, you vow to change wrong into right, yet everywhere in nashville square signs say,
02:39white only and colored only, you can't drink from the same water fountain, you can't go
02:44to the same school, and you can't eat at a lunch counter, for you, this is the worst,
02:49a burst of indignation, colored only, you are all about love, you don't want to be arrested
02:55for eating at a lunch counter, and you will never go along to get along, so what can you
03:00do, confident compassionate, before class in a church each day you and a group of students
03:05pray and learn about change in a peaceful way, at first, you don't think it will work,
03:11can you really end segregation with love, you practice sitting at an imaginary lunch
03:15counter commie ordering food, you promise not to be rude if someone shoves you off your
03:20stool, and if they throw sugar in your hair, that you won't care, you grow so strong, so
03:25determined, so convinced about love, as snow swirls above you and paper hearts fill shop
03:30windows that february day you lead the way to nashville's lunch counters, seeing 21 year
03:36old you sit down with your pearls and your books shakes the cooks and the waitress, she
03:40breaks plate after plate as you wait to be served, inside, you shake to, hands sweating
03:46never forgetting the danger the fear of being arrested for ordering a sandwich, your family
03:50is also afraid, of what can happen to you over lunch, they worry you've gotten in with
03:55the wrong bunch, but you stay brave, you won't cave, sit in after sit in, as hot coffee burns
04:02and sugar turns hair white, you focus on love, and when you get arrested for ordering a sandwich,
04:08more students fill the seats each week 100 200 300 strong, then one april morning a warning,
04:15a bomb explodes loaded with hate because love is winning, shattered windows spinning falling
04:19like rain, tumbling rumbling through a city gone ugly, luckily, no one is hurt, but you
04:25don't wait for calm, that bomb lights a fire in you, a burning desire in you to meet the
04:30mayor face to face, thousands of black americans and white americans feel the same as you,
04:36so what do you do? quietly walking without any talking, you silently lead six thousand
04:41marching feet to the beat of love, youthful truthful, striding towards freedom, you say,
04:47you meet the mayor at the courthouse steps, bowtied and mystified he says there's nothing
04:51he can do, you know it isn't true, determined to stop that lie, you look him in the eye
04:56and ask if he thinks it's wrong fo a mother a sister or a brother to be judged by their
05:01skin color, the mayor agrees that it's wrong, elation invigoration, quick as thunder you
05:06wonder do you mean that to include lunch counters, looking you in the eye the mayor replies yes
05:11dot at that moment love scores, it soars a six thousand loving hands roar with applause,
05:18unstoppable unblockable you prove that love is fierce, love is strong, love is loud, in
05:24may by your 22nd birthday nashville's lunch counters boom to the loving tune of everyone
05:29enjoying meals, black folks and white folks eat side by side, students and church ladies
05:35munch on sandwiches lunch on hot dogs sipping cherry sodas, swirling sugar into coffee,
05:41no traces of mustard thrown on faces, because you dare, nashville's lunch counters finally
05:46serve everyone, the next night martin luther king jr. congratulates you on winning a glorious
05:52fight without raising a fist, he knows that because of you segregation is through in nashville,
05:57no lie can live forever, he says, walk together children, don't get weary, you don't get
06:03weary because the next right thing is around the corner a sit-in on wheels, in the north
06:08black riders and white riders board a bus without a fuss for the freedom rides, traveling
06:13south they sit where they choose and refuse to obey southern rules blacks to the back
06:18and white waiting rooms, because the law of the land says everyone is free to sit or stand
06:23together in a bus traveling across america, when a bomb stops their ride, you decide violence
06:28won't win, demanding commanding, on your 23rd birthday, you keep freedom riding with students
06:34from tennessee who want to be on that bus, no hiding, no fighting back if attacked, because
06:40of you, the country wakes up the president of the united states speaks up and wonders,
06:45who is diane nash, a mississippi judge knows who you are, he charges you with putting freedom
06:50riders on a bus, for teaching just and peaceful powerful ways to create change, how is that
06:55a crime, in no time, you march into the courtroom and meet him in the first row where the judge
07:00says only white people go, you don't budge, you're proud, pregnant with your first baby,
07:06no way you'll see your child grow up in the segregated south without a peaceful fight
07:10turning wrong into right, grandmother bolton said you're more precious than diamonds, but
07:16you are afraid, you write a letter to the word that is honest and bold, i believe that
07:20if i go to jail now you write, it may help hasten that day when my child and all children
07:25will be free, like a jolt of electricity, you get the world to see the ugly reality
07:30of segregation, quick as thunder they wonder, will the judge jail a mother to be, your sentence
07:35is two years, you won't pay bail instead of going to jail, will your baby be born in prison,
07:41resisting resisting, in jail, it's hard to sleep at night, will the cockroaches bite,
07:47as they scurry, you hurry to wash your clothes in the sink, the judge can't believe you stay
07:52in jail for your baby, for freedom, but for you, there is no maybe, jail no bail, the
07:58judge doesn't agree but after ten days he sets you free, unstoppable unblockable your
08:03prove that love is fierce, love is strong, love is loud, in 1963, when freedom marches
08:10in washington dc over 200,000 marches fill the monuments square but you're not there,
08:15the stage is filled with men and martin luther king jr's dream, there's no plan for you to
08:20stand and have your voice be heard, anxiously urgently, only two weeks later, a bomb kills
08:26four young girls in a birmingham church, it hurts so much that you know change must come
08:31now, but how, what can you do, for the first time, you think violence might win, until
08:37you begin to see the next right thing, because you have a dream too, it's not too late to
08:42vote out hate, if thousands of people can march on washington for freedom, why not in
08:47alabama where black people are denied the right to vote, thousands of children and grown
08:52ups filled alabama jails refusing bail just like you did in mississippi until at last
08:56the voting rights act is passed, leading proceeding, the following year your dream is clear, you
09:02arrive before spring on the north side of vietnam when bamboo leaves gleam emerald green
09:06and bombs fall, you meet that country's president, you greet mother's sisters and brother's
09:12babies beautiful honey brown and begin talking peace not war, back home things are different
09:17from before, on chicago's south side, your mom decides to spread love too handing out
09:22peace pamphlets because of you, and when the u.s. government takes your passport there's
09:27no way you'll stay quiet, so what do you do, radiant magnificent, you travel across america
09:32for 50 years so young people will hear how love creates change, welcome diane nash, the
09:38signs say, wonderful and wise diane nash looks into your eyes and lets you know how she stayed
09:43brave the day she got arrested for ordering a sandwich, and why she refused ball and marched
09:48to jail to keep freedom rolling, it's because she loved you even before you were born, sweetly
09:53completely, proud to secure every freedom for you she proved that love is fierce, love
09:58is strong, love is loud, the end