John F. Baggett Ph.D. was born in 1936 in Nashville
Tennessee. He grew up a white child in a segregated south, but became an active
civil rights advocate during his student years at Kentucky Wesleyan College. He
attended Vanderbilt Divinity School from 1959-1961 where he was influenced by a
fellow student and friend, James Lawson, who in 1960, led the Nashville Lunch
Counter Sit-in movement. Following
seminary, while a pastor in Chicago in the 1960s, Baggett travelled to Selma,
Alabama, where he marched with civil rights leaders and Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr. During one march, through the Selma mayor’s neighborhood, John was arrested
and incarcerated for a night.Later, during Dr. King’s Chicago campaign, he
marched with Dr. King through hostile white neighborhoods to protest housing
segregation.In the 1960s, Baggett was one of the civil rights spokespersons who
protested segregation in the Chicago Public Schools. From 1966-1969, Baggett
pastored an African American congregation in the Woodlawn Community of Chicago,
where he founded The School of Human Dignity, a program of education and
cultural affirmation through awareness of African American History and
Culture. During those years, Jessie
Jackson’s Operation Breadbasket (Later Operation PUSH), through negotiated
pressure, persuaded hundreds of public school principals, teachers, and
corporate business executives to attend School of Human Dignity classes. Many of these classes were co-taught by Dr.
Baggett and his colleague, Rev. Dr. John Porter, a personal friend of Dr. King,
and the president of King’s SCLC organization in Chicago. Throughout the 1960s
Baggett was active in two community organizations based on the social
change model of Saul Alinsky, the Back of the Yard’s Neighborhood Council, and
The Woodlawn Organization. In 1969,
Baggett joined the faculty of the Ecumenical Institute, on Chicago’s Westside, where
he helped train local leaders from across the country in grass roots social
change methods. In recent years, John has shared his Civil Rights journey with local schools in Brevard County Florida. For a YouTube recording of his 2019 presentation at The Florida Institute of Technology go to this link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMfGIB0T2oQ.
John F. Baggett Ph.D. was born in 1936 in Nashville
Tennessee. He grew up a white child in a segregated south, but became an active
civil rights advocate during his student years at Kentucky Wesleyan College. He
attended Vanderbilt Divinity School from 1959-1961 where he was influenced by a
fellow student and friend, James Lawson, who in 1960, led the Nashville Lunch
Counter Sit-in movement. Following
seminary, while a pastor in Chicago in the 1960s, Baggett travelled to Selma,
Alabama, where he marched with civil rights leaders and Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr. During one march, through the Selma mayor’s neighborhood, John was arrested
and incarcerated for a night.Later, during Dr. King’s Chicago campaign, he
marched with Dr. King through hostile white neighborhoods to protest housing
segregation.In the 1960s, Baggett was one of the civil rights spokespersons who
protested segregation in the Chicago Public Schools. From 1966-1969, Baggett
pastored an African American congregation in the Woodlawn Community of Chicago,
where he founded The School of Human Dignity, a program of education and
cultural affirmation through awareness of African American History and
Culture. During those years, Jessie
Jackson’s Operation Breadbasket (Later Operation PUSH), through negotiated
pressure, persuaded hundreds of public school principals, teachers, and
corporate business executives to attend School of Human Dignity classes. Many of these classes were co-taught by Dr.
Baggett and his colleague, Rev. Dr. John Porter, a personal friend of Dr. King,
and the president of King’s SCLC organization in Chicago. Throughout the 1960s
Baggett was active in two community organizations based on the social
change model of Saul Alinsky, the Back of the Yard’s Neighborhood Council, and
The Woodlawn Organization. In 1969,
Baggett joined the faculty of the Ecumenical Institute, on Chicago’s Westside, where
he helped train local leaders from across the country in grass roots social
change methods.