Diamond, now 69 and a retired social services and human-resources executive who lives in Northwest Washington, racked up his arrests protesting segregation, voting-rights violations and other discriminatory practices in an activist career that took him from Howard University to the Deep South as part of the Freedom Riders, blacks and whites — many of them students — who challenged segregation in public transportation in 1961, mostly in Mississippi.
This month, as Freedom Riders across the country celebrate the 50th anniversary of their activism, Diamond and other D.C. residents reflected on the movement and the special place the city holds in its history.
Howard, part of the black Ivy League, was a hotbed of student activism at the time. The first bus of Freedom Riders departed May 4, 1961, from the District.
Marion Barry, the city’s four-term mayor and now a D.C. Council member, remains perhaps the movement’s most famous alumnus in the area. He was a student in Nashville when he signed on. But other Freedom Riders who now live in the area, such as Diamond, led more private lives.
There’s Paul Green, 72, who spent his career as a mathematics professor at the University of Maryland. He and Diamond lived a few blocks from each other for years in the District without realizing it until recently.
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