Nov. 7: "The 1961 Freedom Rides--What They Mean for Today"

NEWS RELEASE

Immediate: November 1, 2011 Media Contact:  Alicia Steger 516.572.9634 Email: alicia.steger@ncc.edu ncc.edu/newsreleases

Nassau Community College Presents "The 1961 Freedom Rides — What They Mean for Today"Freedom Rider Dr. A. Lenora Taitt-MagubaneNovember 7

Garden City, NY – The Nassau Community College Cultural Program is proud to present "The 1961 Freedom Rides — What They Mean for Today" with Freedom Rider Dr. A. Lenora Taitt-Magubane. The event will take place on Monday, November 7 at 11:00 a.m. in the College Center Building.

Dr. A. Lenora Taitt-Magubane is a New Yorker who became involved in the civil rights movement while attending college in Georgia in the 1960s. Her first sit-in occurred in March 1960, when she participated with a group of students and faculty in the integration of the audience at a performance of "My Fair Lady" at the Atlanta Municipal Auditorium. When ordered to go to the segregated section, the group refused and held up the performance for 45 minutes. Two weeks later, Dr. Taitt-Magubane was arrested while at a lunch counter sit-in with 77 other students and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As a result, she spent 15 days in the Atlanta, Fulton County Jail. In December 1961, traveling by train from Atlanta, she became one of the 14 Albany, Georgia freedom riders who tested interstate travel, were arrested and spent two weeks in the Albany City and County jails.

Dr. Taitt-Magubane went on to earn her doctorate from Columbia University and had a distinguished career working with refugees in Africa and child and family preventive services in New York.

For more information about "The 1961 Freedom Rides — What They Mean for Today" — which is free, open to the public and accessible to the disabled — call 516.572.7153.

About Nassau Community College Nassau Community College, part of the State University of New York, is an institution where nearly 24,000 full- and part-time students and almost 15,000 continuing and professional students start and continue their successful journey through higher education. More than 70 fields of study are offered on a 225-acre campus located in the center of Long Island. As the largest single-campus two-year college in New York State, Nassau Community College maintains a national reputation for excellence.

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