Beadenkopf will talk at Penn Friends about Civil Rights movement

Published 2:44 pm Thursday, March 12, 2009

By Staff
CASSOPOLIS – Brenda Walker Beadenkopf will be speaking at Penn Friends Church, Cassopolis, Sunday, March 15, at the 8:30 and 11:30 a.m. services. Her sermon will be based the religious basis of the civil rights movement and on her involvement in it.
Her talk is centered on the work of her father, Charles Walker, about whom she is writing a book. A Quaker activist in the civil rights movement, he was an expert in nonviolence who worked earlier in his life at the Montgomery Bus Boycott with Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy, Bayard Rustin, and other major figures in the civil rights Movement. Walker was a key trainer and recruiter for the Freedom Rides and Sit-Ins, working with his friend Jim Farmer, and also was a staff member for the Mississippi Freedom Summer project, 1964.
Walker was a key organizer for the 1963 March on Washington and the Poor People's Campaign. He led nonviolence workshops for the sit-ins at Greensboro and Orangeburg and wrote a handbook, "Organizing For Nonviolent Direct Action," which was used widely in the Movement. Also, Dr. King praised and recommended Walker's contribution to the Movement in "A Perspective on Nonviolence," which Charlie co-wrote.
Beadenkopf will include on Sunday morning, some role playing, as Walker held as part of the training in nonviolence he conducted for Movement leaders. She will also play excerpts from original tapes of Martin Luther Kings sermons, which were a gift from Edith Bagley, a friend of the Walker family who is Coretta King's sister. Beadenkopf's power point presentation is comprised solely from her father's personal collection of memorabilia of Dr. King.
Penn Friends Community Church is located at the corner of Penn Road and Quaker Streets, a few miles north of M-60 up Penn Road, between Cassopolis and Vandalia. For more information call 269-445-8546.