Gordon Carey
Gordon Ray Carey (January 7, 1932 – November 27, 2021) was an American civil rights worker and Freedom Rider.[1][2]
Life
[edit]Carey was born on January 7, 1932, in Grand Rapids, Michigan to Marguerite (Jellema) Carey and Howard Ray Carey. His mother was a homemaker and his father was a Methodist minister and pacifist active in the local chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).[1]
In 1953, Carey registered as a conscientious objector and was consequently arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and charged with draft evasion.[3] Sentenced to 3 years, he spent a year in a minimum-security prison outside Tucson, Arizona. Upon his release, he took courses at Pasadena City College.[1]
As part of the Civil Rights movement, Carey participated in sit-ins at segregated lunch counters and ran workshops to train hundreds of other people in civil disobedience.[1] Carey also helped conceive of the idea for Freedom Rides - groups of Black and white activists who rode together on interstate buses to draw attention to a landmark 1960 U.S. Supreme Court decision that barred segregation by race on all forms of public transportation.[1]
In the 1970s, Carey played a role in ultimately unsuccessful attempt to create a racially integrated utopian community called "Soul City."[1]
Personal life
[edit]Carey married Betye Boyd in 1959. They had two children, Kristina and Anthony Carey. Carey and Boyd divorced and he married Karen Wilken in 1974. Wilken and Carey had a daughter, Ramona.[1]
Carey died on November 27, 2021, in Arlington County, Virginia.[1]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f g h Seelye, Katharine Q. (2021-12-24). "Gordon Carey, a Force in the Civil Rights Movement, Dies at 89". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2021-12-24. Retrieved 2021-12-26.
- ^ "Oral history interview with Gordon R. Carey by Eugene Pfaff : Civil Rights Greensboro". University of North Carolina at Greensboro. 1981-07-15. Retrieved 2021-12-26.
- ^ "Agents Carry Unwilling Youth". The San Bernardino County Sun. 1953-08-22. p. 4. Retrieved 2021-12-26.
External links
[edit]- Gordon Carey at IMDb
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