SPC’s Spring Speaker Series features civil rights champions
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The Spring Speaker Series this month at St. Petersburg College, titled Living Legends of the Civil Rights Movement, will welcome Kredelle Petway and Richard Smiley. Petway fought for eliminating travel segregation as a Freedom Rider in the 1960s, and Smiley participated in the protest march in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965.
Smiley was one of the youngest activists when he walked in the civil rights march from Selma, Alabama, to the state’s capital. By highlighting racial injustice, this and other marches contributed to the passage that year of the nation’s Voting Rights Act.
Freedom Riders challenged segregated seating on buses. Petway was part of a group of Freedom Riders arrested after they flew into the airport in Jackson, Mississippi, to further the cause of desegregating travel.
Both will share their experiences and thoughts regarding civil rights advocacy then and now.
For more information, contact Sheila McCants or Kimberly R. Williams at belonging@spcollege.edu. For Zoom information, visit the Speaker Series: Living Legends.
Date: Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024
Location: St. Petersburg/Gibbs Campus, SU-236, 6605 5th Ave. N., St. Petersburg
Time: 12:30 – 1:30 p.m.