Rev. James Bevel

Born in 1936 in Itta Bena, Mississippi, James Bevel spent two years in the United States Naval Reserve before attending the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee. There he studied under James Lawson and joined the Nashville chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He was ordained a Baptist minister in 1959 and became very active in the Civil Rights Movement. Bevel was married to Diane Nash for a short time during this period. Bevel worked on the Chicago open-house movement in 1966, the anti-Vietnam War movement in 1967, and the Memphis sanitation workers strike and Poor People's Campaign in 1968. Bevel left SCLC in 1969 to form the Making of a Man clinic in 1970. He later founded Students for Education and Economic Development (SEED). He ran for vice-president in 1996 on Lyndon Larouche's ticket. He also helped organize Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March and wrote articles for the Nation of Islam newspaper. Rev. Bevel currently runs a dry cleaning shop in Chicago and is also pastor and adviser to numerous other religious and social organizations.

Civil Rights Era

Bevel, along with John Lewis, Bernard Lafayette, Marion Barry, and Diane Nash, helped to organize student sit-ins against segregated lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee. As chairman of the Nashville student movement, Bevel participated in the Freedom Rides and in 1962 set up the SCLC Mississippi Project for voting rights. In 1963, Bevel joined the fight against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama alongside Martin Luther King and Fred Shuttlesworth. It was Bevel who led the effort to organize and bring young people into the movement. This move drew criticism from those who felt it was too dangerous to march children against Bull Connor's dogs and firehoses. This tactic proved critical, however, in the success of the media battle for the hearts and minds of the American public. Bevel also helped brainstorm the March on Washington and the march from Selma to Montgomery.

Bibliography

Information for this biography was gathered from the following sources:

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