Dr. Bernard LaFayette, Jr.
Dr. Bernard LaFayette is lecturing and training in nonviolence nationally and internationally.
His last conversation with Martin Luther King, Jr. was on April 4, 1968 before King was assassinated. King told LaFayette that the next thing they must do is to “internationalize and institutionalize the nonviolence training”. Six hours later King was dead.
Dr. King’s words rang in LaFayette’s ears and he has made is life’s journey to fulfill the mission of institutionalizing and internationalizing the nonviolence training.
Bernard LaFayette, Jr. has been a Civil Rights Movement activist, minister, educator, lecturer, and is an authority on the strategy of nonviolent social change. He co-founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960. He was a leader of the Nashville Movement, 1960 and on the Freedom Rides, 1961 and the 1965 Selma Movement. He directed the Alabama Voter Registration Project in 1962, and was appointed National Program Administrator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and National Coordinator of the 1968 Poor Peoples’ Campaign by Martin Luther King, Jr.
In addition, Dr. LaFayette has served as Director of Peace and Justice in Latin America, appointed by Glenn Smiley; Chairperson of the Consortium on Peace Research, Education and Development; Director of the PUSH Excel Institute; and minister of the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Tuskegee, Alabama. Also, he is Pastor Emeritus of the Progressive Baptist Church in Nashville,Tennessee.
An ordained minister, Dr. LaFayette earned a B.A. from American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee, and his Ed.M., C.A.S. and Ed.D from Harvard University. He has served on the faculties of Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia and Alabama State University in Montgomery, Alabama, where he was Dean of the Graduate School; he also was principal of Tuskegee Institute High School in Tuskegee , Alabama; and a teaching fellow at Harvard University.
His Publications include the Curriculum and Training Manual for the Martin Luther King Jr., Nonviolent Community Leadership Training Program; his doctoral thesis , Pedagogy for Peace and Nonviolence; and an article in the Duke University Review, Campus Ministries and Social Change in the ‘6o’s; and The Leaders Manual: A Structured Guide and Introduction to Kingian Nonviolence with David Jehnsen. Dr. LaFayette has contributed to a number of publications and periodicals. In 2013, he authored In Peace and Freedom: My Journey in Selma. Dr. LaFayette has traveled extensively to many countries as a lecturer and consultant on peace and nonviolence.
Dr. LaFayette is a former President of the American Baptist College of ABT Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee ; Scholar-in-Residence at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, Georgia appointed by Mrs. Coretta Scott King; and Pastor emeritus of the Progressive Baptist Church in Nashville , Tennessee. He is currently chairman of the Board of the National Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
He is the founder and National President of God-Parent s Club, Inc. , a national community based program aimed at preventing the systematic incarceration of young Black youth; a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., and a founder of the Association for Kingian Nonviolence Education and Training Works.
Dr. LaFayette was formerly a Distinguished Scholar in Residence and Director of the Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies at the University of Rhode Island. He is the chairperson for the Global Nonviolence Conference Series Executive Planning Board. He was also appointed by Rhode Island Governor, Lincoln Almond, as chairman for the Rhode Island Select Commission on Race and Police Community Relations. Currently, Dr. LaFayette is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the University of Rhode Island Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies, Kingston, R.I. and Emeritus Distinguished Senior Scholar-in-Residence at Emory University and faculty at Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, Georgia. He is currently the 2018 Breeden Scholar in Residence at Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama.
A native of Tampa, Florida, Dr. LaFayette is married to the former Kate Bulls of Tuskegee, Alabama and has two sons , James and Bernard LaFayette, III.
David C. Jensen
David C. Jehnsen’s Mission is to develop and institutionalize programs and leadership education opportunities including research, training & education and public information regarding propositions of the democratic way of life, Kingian Nonviolence conflict reconciliation and the values and practice of democratic social change. Forty-eight years in long-range strategic planning and implementation of practical programs with fundamental social systems has been the core of his experience and success from 1962 to the present.
Since 2007 Mr. Jehnsen agreed to join the Every Church a Peace Church Board (ECAPC) and accepted the position of 2008 Board Chair. The ECAPC is a national organization in Atlanta, Georgia with a mission to develop the nonviolence justice and peacemaking capacities of local congregations and strengthen the peace and justice capacities of denominations. Since 2005 He has served Churches Supporting Churches (CSC) as Vice Chair of its National Working Group in New Orleans and serves on the CSC Board of Directors. He is a founding member of Living Peace Church of the Brethren in Columbus, Ohio.
David Jehnsen has been a social change activist, organizer and educator in adult education for democracy with emphasis on special projects and systems related to nonviolence and social responsibility. His experience with nonviolence began at an early age in the Church of the Brethren and was stimulated by exposure to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s leadership of the nonviolent human rights campaigns.
In 1962, his participation in the Albany, Georgia Movement, part of a national delegation of interfaith leaders that provided an opportunity for direct ongoing involvement in Dr. King’s campaigns through 1968. He combines the experience and skills of organizing social movements with innovative ideas about the philosophy of learning and leadership education. His focus has been on institutionalizing the capacity to provide training, research, education and public information about nonviolent approaches to reconciling unjust social conflicts and violent conditions.
Mr. Jehnsen’s experience with schools has been nontraditional. He was awarded his Ed.M. degree from Harvard University Graduate School of Education in 1977 and completed his course work and qualifying paper for an Ed. D. at Harvard. His dissertation topic is “The Cultural Transferability of N.F.S. Grundtvig’s Conception of Adult Education.”
He is retained by public and private organizations to design institutional programs in leadership education about nonviolence conflict reconciliation and social change for democracy. He conducts seminars and programs that educate people at many levels of society about the philosophy and methodology of nonviolence. In 1980-81, he served as Deputy Director of the U.S. Congressional Commission charged with design of the United States Institute of Peace. He drafted the Commission’s first proposal and supporting legislation for Chair Senator Spark M. Matsunaga.
Mr. Jehnsen has worked closely with Bernard LaFayette, Jr., another leader in the Kingian human rights movement, as a multidisciplinary team since 1964 to promote Kingian Nonviolence Conflict Reconciliation strategies and programs in the United States and internationally. In 1978, they formed the Institute for Human Rights and Responsibilities. He is Chair and Founding Trustee of the Institute which he continues to serve in an important range of programs related to social change and development in the United States and internationally. He and Bernard LaFayette co-authored The Leaders Manual: A Structured Guide and Introduction to Kingian Nonviolence- The Philosophy and Methodology.
David Jehnsen is a native of north-central Michigan and lives in Galena, Ohio with his wife Deborah. They have been active in local politics including a term David spent as his party’s county chair, and have relationships to progressive religious and social change movements throughout the nation and internationally.