In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King/Civil Rights Day and Black History Month, this week David Brown interviews Doratha ‘Dodie’ Smith-Simmons, born May 30, 1943. In 1945, she moved to New Orleans where she attended public schools and graduated from Southern University at New Orleans.
Dodie got involved in the civil rights activities of the late 1950’s. She was a member of the NAACP Youth Council and was among students that desegregated LSU New Orleans. In 1960, Dodie joined the New Orleans Congress Of Racial Equality or CORE, participating in sit-ins and picketing, and for that was jailed several times. During the Freedom Rides of 1961, she was a trainer for Freedom Riders leaving from New Orleans.
Dodie describes actions of the 1960s, her involvement in CORE and the dynamics of the movement in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Dodie also shares her impressions of what the demonstrations of 2014 have meant in the latest chapter of the ongoing civil rights movement.
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