Civil Rights Luminary Spotlight - Dr. Joan Trumpauer Mulholland and Judy Richardson

Dr. Joan Trumpauer Mulholland and Judy Richardson spoke at the Nonviolence as a Way of Life: Civil Rights in the 21^st Century Panel, as part of the John Robert Lewis Scholars, Fellows and Leaders Program on July 15, 2025.

Judy Richardson

Judy Richardson was born in 1944 and grew up in New York, before attending Swarthmore College on a scholarship. There, she joined freedom rides to protest segregation in Cambridge, Maryland, and then worked for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to fight for racial equality and voting rights from 1963 to 1966.¹

“Respect everyone. The beloved community ethos involves respecting people regardless of their background or social status. This was particularly important for SNCC when organizing communities with varying levels of formal education and relative wealth. It’s still important today” she said.

Today, she is a film producer. She has worked on films for the Frederick Douglass visitor center, Civil Rights museums in Memphis and Atlanta, and the PBS Series, Eyes on the Prize, and continues to educate others about the Civil Rights Movement and its lessons. “I often say, I’m not going to be passing the baton off. I’m going to be running with you — with this baton — until I can’t run no more. Then, you can grab it from me and keep going.”

Dr. Joan Trumpauer Mulholland

“‘We’ve still got a mighty long way to go,’ as the gospel song says. Pick the problem that bothers you the most,” she says. “Get together with friends who agree with you and take your initiative to the street or the lunch counter.”

Dr. Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, a white woman born in 1941 and raised in Virginia, participated in over 50 sit-ins and demonstrations by the time she was 23 years old. “I learned in church to treat others how you want to be treated…I thought we were a bunch of hypocrites because we weren’t doing that,” she said.²

After an unfulfilling freshman year at Duke University, she left and joined the Nonviolent Action Group from Howard University, the Cherrydale lunch counter sit-ins, the Freedom Rides and the March on Washington, risking her personal safety in pursuit of equality. “When I had my chance to help do something, I would seize it” she said.

In 2014, she established The Joan Trumpeaur Mulholland Foundation, educating people about the Civil Rights Movement and how to become activists in their own communities. In 2020 she was featured in An Ordinary Hero: The True Story of Joan Trumpeaur Mulholland.