Pleasure Principle 19

Fear Not

Pleasure Muse: Gloria Richardson

Tantalizing Trivia  

• She was a Civil Rights activist who led The Cambridge Movement in the 1960s.

• Honored for her leadership, she sat on stage at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963.

• She grew up in Baltimore but was from a prominent family – of landowners, lawyers, and politicians – from the eastern shore of Maryland, who were free before the Civil War. 

• Gloria’s father, John Hayes, died of a heart attack due to segregation which required him to drive further for medical attention – this was a turning point in her life.

• She attended Howard University and started social activism against segregation. During her early activism, Richardson was arrested three times. 

• In 1961, SNCC and The Freedom Rides came to her hometown of Cambridge, Maryland. She and her two daughters got involved in the movement.   

• In 1962, Richardson was asked to help organize the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee (CNAC), the first adult-led affiliate of SNCC.

• She was a passionate and fiery spokesperson who never minced words and always spoke truth to power as one of the only female leaders of a civil rights organization.  

• She was brave: rather than asking for civil rights, she asked for economic rights, and she publicly questioned nonviolence as a tactic. 

• The students – including her daughter – were committed to nonviolence and were attacked by mobs of armed white people. Subsequent freedom walks and sit-ins included armed black men who surrounded the students for protection; clashes escalated.

• During protests in 1963, Richardson was photographed pushing aside the bayonet and rifle of a National Guardsman; the picture went viral in the media, and she became an icon of the movement.    

• She signed a peace treaty with Robert F. Kennedy and local officials after an uprising in Maryland for civil rights. 

Mirror Work: Look at yourself and repeat 2 Timothy 1:7: “God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

Affirmations:

• I have the power to change my life. 

• This will pass. It won’t last. 

• I’m worthy of love and happiness.

Fear Not: A Playlist  

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