RELEASED: Jan. 24, 2002

DANVILLE, KY—What the Civil Rights movement meant to Kentuckians and what Centre College and Danville were like during that period were explored during a recent program on campus.

A viewing party for the Kentucky Educational Television program "Living the Story: The History of the Civil Rights Movement in Kentucky'" was held in Newlin Hall of Centre's Norton Center for the Arts on Jan. 21, the national holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Helen Fisher Frye of Danville; Norman Bartleson, president of the Danville branch of the NAACP; Eric Mount, Centre Professor of Religion; Bobby Elliott and Gordon Benning, who were students at Centre in the late 1960s, early 1970s, were part of a panel that addressed the audience after the television program.

Mount, Bartleson, Frye, Elliott and Benning spoke of their involvement in integration demonstrations in Danville during the 1960s.

Mount found it interesting how times have changed noting "the irony of the accolades being accorded the people in the film, several of them recent initiates into the Kentucky Civil Rights Hall of Fame, when most of them, along with Dr. King, were called Communists or given other nasty labels at the time of their direct action for civil rights."

Ashley McGraw, a senior who is a member of Centre's Diversity Student Union, served as moderator.

- end -

Back to News and Events Home Page