The Movement that Makes US: A conversation with freedom rider and civil rights activist Dave Dennis, Sr is a special event that will be facilitated at Agape Missionary Baptist Church. On May 8th, the day following this event, Dave Dennis, Sr will come to the OWLS Club to speak at our own Eyes on the Prize; Civil Rights Series.
Dave Dennis, Sr is a civil rights activist whose involvement began in the early 1960s. Dennis grew up in the segregated area of Omega, Louisiana.
He worked as a co-director of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), as director of Mississippi’s Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and as one of the organizers of the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964. Dennis worked closely with both Bob Moses and Medgar Evers as well as with members of SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
His first involvement in the Civil Rights Movement was at a Woolworth sit-in organized by CORE and he went on to become a Freedom Rider in 1961.
Since 1989, Dennis has put his activism toward the Algebra Project, a nonprofit organization run by Bob Moses that aims to improve mathematics education for minority children. Dennis also speaks publicly about his experiences in the movement through an organization called Dave Dennis Connections.