Judy Richardson is an American
documentary film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...
maker and
civil rights activist
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
. She was Distinguished Visiting Lecturer of
Africana Studies at
Brown University.
Early life
Richardson was born in
Tarrytown, New York
Tarrytown is a village in the town of Greenburgh in Westchester County, New York. It is located on the eastern bank of the Hudson River, approximately north of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, and is served by a stop on the Metro-North ...
. She attended Washington Irving Jr. High. Richardson entered
Swarthmore College in
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
in 1962 on a full
scholarship
A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need.
Scholars ...
.
Activism
During Richardson's freshman year at Swarthmore in 1962–1963, she joined the Swarthmore Political Action Committee (SPAC), a
Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships ...
(SDS) affiliate. She graduated from Swarthmore in 1966.
Richardson was an early participant with the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from 1963 to 1966. During her time with SNCC,
Ella Baker
Ella Josephine Baker (December 13, 1903 – December 13, 1986) was an African-American civil rights and human rights activist. She was a largely behind-the-scenes organizer whose career spanned more than five decades. In New York City and t ...
was her mentor.
In 1963, Richardson traveled on weekends, with other Swarthmore SPAC volunteers, to assist the
Cambridge, Maryland
Cambridge is a city in Dorchester County, Maryland, United States. The population was 13,096 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Dorchester County and the county's largest municipality. Cambridge is the fourth most populous city in Mary ...
community in
desegregating public accommodations.
The
Cambridge Movement was led by
Gloria Richardson
Gloria Richardson Dandridge (born Gloria St. Clair Hayes; May 6, 1922 – July 15, 2021) was an American civil rights activist best known as the leader of the Cambridge movement, a civil rights action in the early 1960s in Cambridge, Maryland, ...
with assistance from SNCC field secretaries, including
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
native Reggie Robinson.
In 1963, Richardson joined a SNCC organized
sit-in at a
Toddle House
Toddle House was a national quick service restaurant restaurant chain, chain in the United States, which specialized in breakfast but was open 24/7. Lunch and dinner entrées included soups and salads and various sandwiches. Much of their business ...
in
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
.
Richardson eventually joined the SNCC staff at the national office in Atlanta, where she worked closely with
James Forman
James Forman (October 4, 1928 – January 10, 2005) was a prominent African-American leader in the civil rights movement. He was active in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Black Panther Party, and the League of Revolutio ...
,
Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson
Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson (April 25, 1942 – October 7, 1967) worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from its earliest days in 1960 until her death in October 1967. She served the organization as an activist in the fiel ...
, and
Julian Bond
Horace Julian Bond (January 14, 1940 – August 15, 2015) was an American social activist, leader of the civil rights movement, politician, professor, and writer. While he was a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, during the e ...
.
Richardson relocated to
Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
during 1964
Freedom Summer after the SNCC national office moved there.
She worked with SNCC during their effort that summer to register African American voters in Mississippi, joining
Amzie Moore
Amzie Moore (September 23, 1911 – February 1, 1982) was an African-American civil rights leader and entrepreneur in the Mississippi Delta.
Early life
Amzie Moore is one of the lesser known Civil Rights Movement leaders, but was extremely in ...
,
Bob Moses Robert Moses (1888–1981) was an American city planner.
Robert Moses may also refer to:
* Bob Moses (activist) (1935–2021), American educator and civil rights activist
* Bob Moses, American football player in the 1962 Cotton Bowl Classic
* Bob M ...
,
Curtis Hayes, and
Hollis Watkins
Hollis Watkins is an activist who was part of the Civil Rights Movement activities in the state of Mississippi during the 1960s. He became a member and organizer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1961, was a county organ ...
.
Richardson also worked in SNCC's projects in
Lowndes County, Alabama
Lowndes County is in the central part of the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 10,311. Its county seat is Hayneville. The county is named in honor of William Lowndes, a member of the United States Con ...
(with
Stokely Carmichael
Kwame Ture (; born Stokely Standiford Churchill Carmichael; June 29, 1941November 15, 1998) was a prominent organizer in the civil rights movement in the United States and the global pan-African movement. Born in Trinidad, he grew up in the Unite ...
/Kwame Ture and others) and in Southwest Georgia.
Richardson became Julian Bond's office manager in 1965, during his successful first campaign for the
Georgia House of Representatives
The Georgia House of Representatives is the lower house of the Georgia General Assembly (the state legislature) of the U.S. state of Georgia. There are currently 180 elected members. Republicans have had a majority in the chamber since 2005. ...
.
She also organized a northern
Freedom School, bringing together young activists from SNCC's northern and southern projects.
Drum and Spear Bookstore
In 1968, shortly after the assassination of
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
, Richardson and other former SNCC staffers founded Drum and Spear Bookstore in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
It became the largest Black bookstore in the country, with Richardson as the children's editor of Drum and Spear Press.
Richardson said about the bookstore's name that the drum symbolized "communications within the diaspora" while the spear suggested "whatever else might be necessary for the liberation of the people."
In 1970,
Howard University
Howard University (Howard) is a Private university, private, University charter#Federal, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classifie ...
's ''
Journal of Negro Education
''The Journal of Negro Education'' was a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Howard University, established in 1932 by Charles Henry Thompson, who was its editor-in-chief for more than 30 years.[racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonis ...]
in Black children's books.
Later years
Richardson attended
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
and received her degree from
Antioch College
Antioch College is a private liberal arts college in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Founded in 1850 by the Christian Connection, the college began operating in 1852 as a non-sectarian institution; politician and education reformer Horace Mann was its ...
in General Studies. In 2012, Richardson received an honorary degree from Swarthmore and spoke at the 2012 commencement ceremony.
In 2019, Richardson was the keynote speaker for
National History Day
National History Day is a non-profit organization based in College Park, Maryland that operates an annual project-based contest for students in grades 6-12. It has affiliates in all fifty states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam, American Sam ...
.
In September 2020 she was featured on the
USA Today
''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgi ...
Storytellers Project Live.
Richardson serves on the board of directors of the SNCC Legacy Project, which preserves records of Black activism past and present.
Films and publications
Starting in the late 1970s, Richardson became an early researcher, series associate producer, and content advisor for the series ''
Eyes on the Prize,'' which
Henry Hampton
Henry Eugene Hampton Jr. (8 January 1940 – 22 November 1998) was an African-American filmmaker. His production company, Blackside, Inc., produced over 80 programs—the most recognizable being the documentary ''Eyes on the Prize,'' which w ...
executive produced through his company Blackside.
''Eyes on the Prize'' was a 14-hour documentary series on the history of the
American civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the United ...
, broadcast on
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
in 1987 and 1990. The series was nominated for an
Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature
An academy ( Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosoph ...
in 1988.
Richardson later co-produced Blackside's 1994
Emmy and
Peabody Award-winning documentary, ''Malcolm X: Make It Plain'' (for PBS's The American Experience).
Serving as a senior producer for
Northern Light Productions
Northern Light Productions is a documentary film and museum media production company based in Boston, MA. Founded in 1982 by independent filmmaker Bestor Cram, the company is one of New England's premiere production organizations, creating a vari ...
in Boston, Richardson produced historical documentaries for broadcast and museums, with a focus on African American historical events, including: a one-hour documentary called ''Scarred Justice: Orangeburg Massacre 1968'' (South Carolina) for PBS;
two History Channel documentaries on slavery and slave resistance; and installations for, among others, the
National Park Service
The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propert ...
's Little Rock Nine Visitor's Center, the
National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center is a museum in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, based on the history of the Underground Railroad. Opened in 2004, the Center also pays tribute to all efforts to "abolish human enslavement and secure fr ...
, the
New York State Historical Society's "Slavery in New York" exhibit, and the
Paul Laurence Dunbar House.
Richardson co-edited ''Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts By Women in SNCC'' published by University of Illinois Press.
The book won the
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, Nonfiction
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.& ...
in 2011.
References
External links
Judy Richardson Personal Papers, 1979-2010at
Washington University Libraries
Washington University Libraries is the library system of Washington University in St. Louis. The system includes 12 libraries and over 5.5 million volumes. The John M. Olin Library is the central library.
Olin Library
Centrally located on the Da ...
.
''Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts By Women in SNCC''published by University of Illinois Press.
Zinn Education Project profile of Judy RichardsonSNCC Digital Gateway: Judy Richardson Documentary website created by the SNCC Legacy Project and Duke University, telling the story of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee & grassroots organizing from the inside-out.
Judy Richardson interviewfor Swarthmore Libraries ''Student Activism: Civil Rights, 1960 – 1966'' oral history project, December 6, 2017.
''Since 1968: The Drum & Spear Bookstore'' Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
documentary, September 24, 2018.
Beyond MLK: Teaching The Civil Rights MovementOn January 21, 2019, Judy Richardson was among those interviewed by
Kojo Nnamdi
Rex Orville Montague Paul (born January 8, 1945), better known as Kojo Nnamdi ( ), is a Guyanese-born American radio journalist based in Washington, D. C. He is the host of ''The Kojo Nnamdi Show'' and ''The Politics Hour'' on WAMU, and hosted ...
on
WAMU
WAMU (88.5 FM) is a public news/ talk station that services the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. It is owned by American University, and its studios are located near the campus in northwest Washington. WAMU has been the primary Nation ...
about teaching and studying the civil rights movement.
Judy Richardson shares a personal story for "Uprisings: Stories of the work of civil rights"Judy Richardson tells the story of when she was 20-years-old and escaped from a white mob in 1964 Freedom Summer, among other stories of her experiences in SNCC. On ''
USA Today
''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgi ...
'' Storytellers Live Project, September 24, 2020.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Richardson, Judy
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
People from Tarrytown, New York
Swarthmore College alumni
American democracy activists
American civil rights activists (civil rights movement)
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Brown University faculty
American documentary filmmakers