Chela Lightchild
(Marcia Rosenbaum)

CORE, 1961-63, Mississippi, Louisiana
Current Residence: Las Vegas, NM
Email: chela.lightchild@gmail.com

I really do not feel as if I had a choice. I heared Dr. King speak in Los Angeles in May or June of 1961. I cannot remember a word of what he said. But, I recognized the Truth and the opportunity to serve it. What a chance. I grabbed it participated in a Freedom Ride from New Orleans to Jackson the next week.

After the students at Southern were told that they would be expelled if they were arrested at civil rights demonstrations; CORE New Orleans began holding "sit and run" sit-ins. We (myself, the Thompson sisters, Pat Black, Frank Nelson, and maybe some other people whom I can't remember) held workshops on nonviolence and meetings with the students from Southern. We sat in at the ever popular Kress's and left the scene as soon as anyone called the police in order to avoid anyone being arrested. We would run to the Greyhound, get on the bus back to N.O. and watch the Baton Rouge Police racing to the scene of our crime.

 


 
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