Original Freedom Rider, son to offer Sutherland Lecture at Saint Michael’s

One of the original “Freedom Riders” will join his son in a visit to the Saint Michael’s campus at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 3, 2022 in the McCarthy Arts Center Recital Hall for this year’s annual Sutherland Lecture, facilitated by the College’s Inaugural Edmundite Fellow Jolivette Anderson-Douoning.

“This event is about the relationship of a father and son and how their lived experiences are deeply rooted within the U.S. Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and Black Freedom Struggles in the Deep South of the United States,” Anderson-Douoning said. The title of the presentation is “A Conversation with David Dennis Jr & David Dennis Sr.” and will be based upon their forthcoming book, The Movement Made Us.

Jolivette Anderson-Douoning

“The intergenerational narrative that David Dennis Jr has written in collaboration with his father in their book The Movement Made Us embodies aspects of the Edmundite Southern Missions, the Catholic intellectual tradition, and the Catholic presence in the civil rights organizing tradition,” Anderson-Douoning said.

She said that David Dennis Jr., as an award-winning journalist and author of The Movement Made Us., “captures the spirit and the love and labor demonstrated by his father during the early 1960s black freedom movement. Their forthcoming book gives insight into the sacred spaces of black manhood and black struggles for social justice as it has been passed from father to son.”

The cover of the Dennis’s forthcoming book.

As one of the original Freedom Riders, David J. Dennis Sr., in The Movement Made Us, has narrated his lived experiences to his son, “who is heir and progeny of the history and the history-makers of the U.S. civil rights movement,” Anderson-Douoning said. The Dennis’s visit to Saint Michael’s intends to be “an intergenerational conversation about race, gender, geography and their father-son perspectives on how the Movement’ impacted their lives as Black men from the Deep South USA,” she said.

The March 3 event is an extension of “teaching and learning” curriculum and pedagogy in the Saint Michael’s College History Department. Anderson-Douoning has been collaborating with the College’s History Department Chair Kathryn Dungy to teach special seminars both fall and spring semester relating to U.S. civil rights history

In preparation for participating in this event, Saint Michael’s students across disciplines have been learning more about U.S. civil rights history in many classes. The afternoon program also will be viewable via a Zoom Webinar link.

The live event in the McCarthy Recital Hall is free and open to the public. Here is the link to join the webinar and participate virtually:

https://smcvt.zoom.us/j/93635564970?pwd=cml6eDlPQnlDaHB0MiszU3NEWktrUT09

Passcode: 609639