Civil Rights Movement Inspired USD’s Nelson

Inside USD -- Lance Nelson will always remember his June 1965 high school graduation in Albany, N.Y., especially the reason why he missed the ceremony.

Nelson traveled in a car with a group of local college students to Atlanta, and from there Allendale, S.C., to do voter registration work on behalf of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), an organization led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“It was a life-changing experience for me at age 17,” said Nelson, now 64, a veteran University of San Diego Theology and Religious Studies professor. “I briefly met Dr. King and later that summer I got arrested and was put in jail for disorderly conduct because of a sit-in.” (Full Story)