Diane Nash

Diane Judith Nash (born May 15, 1938) is an American civil rights activist and strategist of the student wing of the Civil Rights Movement. Nash's campaigns were among the most successful of the era. Her efforts included becoming the chairman of the Nashville Student Movement; organizing the Nashville sit-ins, the first successful civil rights campaign to integrate lunch counters; continuing the Freedom Rides, which desegregated interstate travel; co-founding the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); and co-initiated the Alabama Voting Rights Project and working on the Selma Voting Rights Movement with her husband, James Bevel. Their Selma campaign helped gain Congressional passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which authorized the federal government to oversee and enforce state practices to ensure that African Americans and other minorities were not prevented from registering and voting. In July 2022, Nash was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden.