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Seminary Students' Vigil
Religious organizations played an important role in the Leadership Conference's lobbying strategy. On April 19 Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish seminary students began a prayer vigil in support of the civil rights bill at the Lincoln Memorial. Groups composed of students from each faith took turns standing in silent prayer twenty-four hours a day. The prayer vigil continued through the Senate debate. Sixty-five hundred representatives of the Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish faiths attended a National Interreligious Convocation at Georgetown University on April 28 to reach out to wavering senators and display religious unity for civil rights. Howard Brodie, a courtroom artist, covered the debates for CBS News and sketched the students on Sunday, May 3, 1964, when the Senate was not in session. |