Bernard Lafayette

Freedom Riders Museum

Rest Well, Bernard Lafayette

Bernard Lafayette was a Freedom Rider. He died recently, and I find myself sitting with that.

I was fortunate enough to travel with him twice on civil rights pilgrimages through DDK Tours. These trips with with family and friends will forever be a part of me.

We stood at Bryant’s Grocery & Meat Market, where fourteen-year-old Emmett Till came to buy candy and never made it home.

We walked the grounds of Tuskegee. We visited the King Center, the Civil Rights Museum, the Freedom Riders Museum, and Medgar Evers’ home. We crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on foot and stepped inside the Voter Rights Museum in Selma.

We stood in the courtyard of the Lorraine Motel and looked up at Room 306.

Through all of it, Bernard Lafayette was there as a guide. His voice giving life to the historical landmarks we toured.

In 1961, interracial groups of activists boarded interstate buses into the Deep South to challenge segregation. They said goodbyes to their families unsure they’d make it home. They knew what was waiting.

Bernard Lafayette was twenty years old. They were met with firebombs, beatings, and arrests. And they got back on the bus.

That’s what I keep returning to. Getting back on the bus. The world was burning then too. And watching what’s unfolding in our country now—it feels like we are at end of something. Many somethings.

We are also at the beginning….

How we contribute might look different for everyone. I’m writing. I’m teaching. I’m working my practice. I’m resting. I’m holding my people close.

It’s what I owe the earth. It’s what I owe me. It’s what I owe you.

Rest well, Sir. We have gained another ancestor.