The solemn slogan that defined the Rev. C.K. Steele’s moral resolve at the heart of the civil rights movement in Tallahassee, Florida, was “I would rather walk in dignity than ride in humiliation.”
Steele, an iconic local figure, was instrumental in the student-led Tallahassee bus boycott—a 7-month-long, historic movement that ignited social change for Black people in the South and served as a precursor to other student-initiated demonstrations, such as the 1960 Atlanta and Greensboro sit-ins and the 1961 Freedom Rides.
It’s been 70 years since this resistance.
Naji Rutherford 