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Born on May 15, 1938, in Chicago, Illinois, Nash grew up middle-class and raised Catholic
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After transferring to Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1959, she witnessed severe racial segregation, prompting her to participate in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and nonviolent protests. Link Text
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In 1960, she was designated as the student sit-in movement’s chairperson in Nashville. (https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=TJDdBwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA235&dq=Diane+Nash+(1938+%E2%80%93+)+&ots=HyxDOVvZqg&sig=I6j5CHoC4KNZVz0f6yjwQz7uzkQ#v=onepage&q=Diane%20Nash%20(1938%20%E2%80%93%20)&f=false)
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In 1961, Nash coordinated the Nashville Student Movement Ride from Birmingham, Alabama, to Jackson, Mississippi after learning of the bus burning in the Alabama city of Anniston and the riot in Birmingham.
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She eventually left college to become a full-time activist for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1961.
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After moving to Jackson, Mississippi, in 1961, Nash headed SCLC campaigns to register people to vote and desegregate schools (http://hist314online.ferrellhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/BRYAN-black-women-activists-in-civ-rts-movement.pdf)
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On February 6, 1961, she participated in a sit-in at a lunch counter in Rock Hill, South Carolina, with Ruby Doris Smith, Charles Jones and Charles Sherrod.
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She was also appointed to a national committee by President John F. Kennedy that promoted passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
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In 1965 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. awarded Nash and her husband SCLC’s Rosa Parks award for their contributions to civil rights.
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Nash was named a recipient of the Distinguished American Award from the John F. Kennedy Library and Foundation in 2003 and the LBJ Award of Leadership in Civil Rights from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum the following year. Additionally, she has been awarded honorary doctorates from Fisk University and the University of Notre Dame (https://www.biography.com/activist/diane-nash)
