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Nashville, TN (4-25-08) Today, it gives me much pleasure to report that the Tennessee Board of Regents has joined the community in support of awarding honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degrees to 14 students who were expelled from TSU in 1961.
Those students, now known as the Freedom Riders 14, have come to exemplify persons who are deserving of honorary degrees. They are individuals who have demonstrated extraordinary achievements, setting standards that merit distinction.
As most of you know, our beloved America was a different nation 40 years ago. We were a nation divided, frightened by change and confused by progress. Despite the fact that it was a dark and troubling time, it was also a time of enlightenment for many young adults who cared enough about their cities, their states and their nation to fight for change; although history has shown that sometimes change comes at a high cost. For the Freedom Riders, the cost was expulsion (some Freedom Riders returned to finish at TSU, others eventually went to different institutions and then some did not finish at all) from the institution of higher learning that was founded...