Dave Dennis:

Biography:

A Louisiana native, Dave Dennis worked with Bob Moses in Mississippi and was active in many Civil Rights organizations during the 1960s. He currently works for the Algebra Project, an organization founded by Moses to improve minority youth mathematics education. Dave Dennis was a Freedom Rider and co-director of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) in Mississippi. Dennis was also the Mississippi director of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), but he worked with SNCC members and other civil rights activists in Mississippi under the COFO umbrella to avoid intra-organizational conflicts. COFO organized activists for a Mississippi voter registration drive during "Freedom Summer" of 1964, which resulted in several deaths. In a memorable outburst at James Chaney’s funeral, Dennis called for the “living dead” to give their all to the movement for racial justice. Dennis was arrested thirty times for his civil rights activism. 

Content of Video:

Dave Dennis fell into civil rights work as many did: because he was enamored with a female SNCC worker. He would come to work for CORE, see the inside of jail cells, lose a lot of friends to racial violence, believe in the strength of local peoples and community power, and tie the Brown school desegregation decision to the terrible state of public education in America today—#26 in the world.

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