HR 3622

Her expressed Christian faith and understanding of America’s founding documents led the young Joan to believe, that all men are created equal in the eyes of her Creator as well as on the scales of Justice. As a 10 year old girl, Joan’s eyes were opened to the extreme inequality of the races when, while visiting her grandmother in rural Georgia, she came upon a dilapidated wooden shack that served as the schoolhouse for the community’s Black children and compared it to the newly constructed block and brick school for the community’s White children. She vowed then that if she ever had a chance, she would work to change this separate but unequal system.

During the summer of 1960, Joan worked with a DC-affiliate of SNCC, the Non-Violent Action Group, to protest local segregation policies in the National Capitol Region, integrating establishments in all 3 locales, including those in her own community of Arlington, Virginia. In addition, Joan joined the staff of Senator Clair Engel of California and worked in his office on Capitol Hill until the Freedom Movement once again called for her deeper involvement.

In the spring of 1961, Joan joined the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Freedom Rides, working to integrate interstate travel facilities throughout the South. CORE sent her by plane to New Orleans and then by train to Jackson, Mississippi, where she was arrested and placed first in local jails, where she kept a secret diary of her experiences—now considered an important historical artifact of the Freedom Rider era. After two weeks in local jails, Joan was sent to Parchman Penitentiary where she, along with other committed activists, was held on death row for challenging the established policies of segregation. Joan was held in the penitentiary for more than 60 days until she worked off her court fine and was released.

In the fall of 1961, Joan was accepted to the Historically Black Tougaloo College on the outskirts of Jackson to further her education as well as to continue challenging the existing segregated order. She became the first full-time matriculating White student in the history of the college, garnering headlines in national newspapers and magazines for what was then regarded as reverse integration. Also, Joan, along with other Freedom Riders who decided to remain in Jackson, became part of the vanguard of the movement for civil and voting rights in the State of Mississippi. She helped form the Non-Violent Jackson Movement, which immediately began challenging segregation on city buses and in public buildings, including courtrooms. It became her mission to help the South move on from its polarized and self-defeating system of racial segregation and learn to build a more equitable social order.

On April 6, 1963, Joan became a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., a Black Greek organization. She is recognized as one of the first white members of the esteemed Sorority.

The Jackson Woolworth’s sit-in triggered additional massive nonviolent demonstrations for civil rights within the city of Jackson in which more than 1,000 youth, including Joan, were arrested for challenging segregation. For her role in the Jackson Movement, Joan was targeted for death by the local Ku Klux Klan, as were a number of her colleagues, including NAACP leader Medgar Evers, who would, indeed, be assassinated two weeks to the day after the Woolworth’s sit in at his home in Jackson. During the summer of 1963, Joan moved back to Washington, DC, where she attended Evers’s burial at Arlington Cemetery.

In all, Joan participated in more than three-dozen direct action campaigns throughout the South during her college years, including those in Rock Hill, South Carolina and Baltimore, Maryland, before graduating from Tougaloo College in the spring of 1964 and moving back to her native Virginia to begin her adult life. She started her working career as a clerk for the Smithsonian Institution before transferring to join the newly forming Community Relations Service, America’s Peacemaker, first housed in the Department of Commerce and later with the Department of Justice. During this time, Joan remained active in the civil rights field, participating in the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965 and in the March Against Fear in 1966.

Joan eventually married and left public service to start a family. Once her five boys were school-age, Joan rejoined the workforce as a teacher’s assistant in the Arlington County Public Schools, where she became known for encouraging a multi-cultural approach to learning, pulling from her many world travels and her knowledge of sociology to help immigrants appreciate their own cultures while helping them integrate into the American way of life. After more than 30 years as an educator, Joan retired and embarked on a third career as a civil rights ambassador, traveling the country talking about her experiences and encouraging others to get involved in public life to make a difference.

For her service in the Civil Rights Movement and as an ambassador of nonviolence, Joan has been awarded many honors, including the Heroes Against Hate Award from the Anti-Defamation League, the National Civil Rights Museum’s Freedom Award, the International Civil Rights Museum’s Trailblazer Award, the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority’s Award of Honor, and the Simeon Booker Award for Courage. In February of 2023, Joan was honored by the Virginia General Assembly and was received on the Floor of the Virginia State Senate for her inimitable role in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and her ongoing commitment to educating others about equality and social justice. In May of 2023, she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters by her alma mater, Tougaloo College, for her service to humanity.