Priscilla Stephens Kruize played a key role in the civil rights movement at FAMU. Now, she needs support to cover her healthcare costs.
We often say we honor the people who fought for our freedom. Now, communities have an opportunity to directly help one of the women who academics like FAMU professor Dr. Dana Dennard say played a key role in kicking off the civil rights movement in Florida: Priscilla Stephens Kruize.
Kruize, 87, and her late sister, Patricia Stephens Due, founded the Tallahassee chapter of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and led the first major sit-in-turned-jail-in while attending Florida A&M University in Tallahassee. On February 20, 1960, the Stephens sisters were among the many students who sat in at the Woolworth lunch counter in downtown Tallahassee. Refusing to leave, the sisters, along with 9 other students, were arrested for “disturbing the peace.” However, instead of paying the $300 fine they received for the non-violent sit-in, Patricia, Priscilla, and other students chose to stay in jail for 49 days as a form of protest– a tactic that would later be adopted across the country under the slogan “Jail, No Bail.”…