Leaders of the civil rights movement urged more than 400 DeKalb County high school students Monday to get involved, make a difference and continue fighting against discrimination.
The Black History Month program featured four "living legends" of the movement: C.T. Vivian, Xernona Clayton, J.T. Johnson and Rita Samuels.
"We now have a black month, but it's understood that every day you're black in America, and every day you have to be involved in changing the conditions," said Vivian, who worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and participated in Freedom Rides.
Clayton, who worked with the National Urban League and Southern Christian Leadership Conference, told the student audience about how activism can result in change.
She said she and others pressured President Lyndon B. Johnson to treat black doctors equally at Grady Memorial Hospital and nationwide, resulting in hospital desegregation.
“You’ve got to be bold sometimes and courageous,” Clayton told the students at the Porter Sanford III Performing Arts & Community Center. “Pick a problem and be willing to do what you can to solve it.”
J.T. Johnson, who participated in the St. Augustine movement before the passage of the Civil Rights Act, said the work toward equal rights in the United States is far from over.
“There’s still a lot of racism in our country,” he said. “You have to mobilize your school and get involved.”
Samuels, an SCLC worker with King and in decades since, said the civil rights movement enabled the next generation to continue their efforts.
“If you have to fight for it, you have a lot to fight with,” she said.
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