In Memoriam: C. T. Vivian’s Long Fight for Education Equity
In our research, we come across thousands of courageous individuals who dedicated their lives toward realizing the dream of a more just society, whose stories deserve greater recognition. In this section, we will celebrate the lives of those who have recently passed by exploring their less-recognized contributions, presenting a fuller view of their total impact for freedom.
By Brynn Raymond, Research Assistant
When Reverend Cordy Tindell Vivian passed away on 17 July this year, articles proliferated lauding his many accomplishments, ranging from his participation in the 1960 Nashville sit-in movement to his highly publicized confrontation with Selma sheriff Jim Clark on the Dallas County Courthouse steps in February 1965 while working as director of affiliates for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). However, Vivian’s lifetime of activism striving for education equity remains underexplored. In a 2016 interview, Vivian noted that it was this work for which he had “the lowest number of awards coming,” and yet he referred to his contributions to college access in particular as “the biggest thing I did.” 1 Vivian’s VISION program, which he launched in the summer of 1965, remains especially notable due to its influence on current college access programs as well as its similarities to the ongoing work of the C. T. Vivian Leadership Institute.
In later interviews, Vivian highlighted three reasons for starting the VISION program. First, he noted that while southern schools desegregated at a crawling pace in the decade after Brown v. Board of Education, schools began firing and demoting black teachers and principals, and, in turn, many African-American students left school because “their heroes were being put down.” 2 He had similarly seen many young people who “were able to have enough nerve to go out there and go to jail” and yet were expelled from school as a result of their activism.3 Finally, the success of the Selma to Montgomery March earlier that year prompted Vivian to start planning for the next generation. Calling the march and the subsequent passage of the Voting Rights Act “the highpoint” of the whole movement, Vivian feared that “the old would come back” unless new leaders were trained.4 The “vision” the program’s name referred to was, therefore, “the vision of creating new leadership for the South” by ensuring that those who left or were forced out of school were able to return and by providing a pathway for “every kid, particularly black kids … to get a college education if they were capable of it.” 5
VISION launched in ten Alabama cities over the course of two six-week sessions between June and August 1965 as a co-sponsored endeavor of SCLC and the St. Louis Conference on Religion and Race. In a 31 May press conference, Vivian specifically entreated those from St. Louis to volunteer for VISION, stating, “We saw 560 St. Louisans in the march to Montgomery. They asked what they can do next.” 6 Teachers, college students, and professors answered the summons and tutored Alabama high school students both in specific subjects and in test preparation for college entrance exams. VISION ultimately helped send over seven hundred students to college on scholarships. The program’s resounding success attracted the attention of the federal Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), which awarded SCLC a grant of over $60,000 for VISION’s work. King noted that this was SCLC’s first government grant and that it would be used “to service our affiliates and both Negro and white persons who desire to live above the ignorance forced upon them by cultural deprivation in certain areas.” 7
VISION also informed the development of the fledgling Upward Bound program. Made possible by the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 and later strengthened by the Higher Education Act of 1965 as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” initiative, Upward Bound pilot programs operated under the direction of the OEO over the summer of 1965 before officially launching throughout the nation the following year. Like VISION, Upward Bound provides support for students from disadvantaged backgrounds in overcoming barriers to higher education. While the creation of Upward Bound is often attributed to federal employees like Stan Salett and Sargent Shriver, the OEO also sought external input in the program’s early stages as Upward Bound took shape. The grant awarded to VISION in August 1965—while Upward Bound was still in its pilot stage—suggests that the OEO liked the model that VISION provided. Vivian often spoke of VISION as the prototype for Upward Bound, recalling conversations with individuals from Johnson’s administration and stating, “I was able to get them to send people to every one of the cities and places that we had, that we had our students going.” 8 The end result was a program that looked a great deal like Vivian’s VISION. Now under the direction of the U.S. Department of Education, Upward Bound still exists today, continuing to provide crucial support for thousands of low-income and first-generation college applicants each year.
Vivian’s more recent remarks on education, as well as the ongoing work of the C. T. Vivian Leadership Institute, demonstrate his continued commitment to educational equity later in his life, even as new challenges emerged. In a 2010 interview, Vivian noted that the Institute was “trying to create a knowledge base at every level,” calling this need “the great movement of our period right now.” 9 He observed that a student’s ability to access higher education today is often determined by standardized test scores, the quality of the high school the student attends, and whether the student has access to social capital such as references—all factors that disproportionately constrain low-income students and students of color. Vivian’s Institute addresses these barriers through a variety of means, including ACT and GED preparation; the Career Readiness and Economic Development program, which provides participants with employment opportunities and training, including for former inmate re-entry; and the Male Scholars program, which matches young African-American men with “Elders” who go beyond traditional mentorship by “taking ownership in not only every boy’s successful journey, but also in creating a village around our boys to support them.” 10
Such programs share VISION’s core goals—namely, dismantling barriers to knowledge and economic mobility along lines of race and class. From 1965 until his death in July 2020, Vivian worked tirelessly to call attention to barriers to education and training at all levels and to establish programs that provide much-needed individualized mentorship and support to those forced to the margins. The products of his work in educational equity, including through Upward Bound and the C. T. Vivian Leadership Institute, will continue to impact generations to come.
1. Vivian, “Reverend Dr. C. T. Vivian Describes the Start of Upward Bound Program,” Interview by Larry Crowe, HistoryMakers Digital Archive, (accessed October 20, 2020).
2. Vivian, Interview by Crowe.
3. Vivian, “Starting Upward Bound,” Interview by Renee Poussaint, National Visionary Leadership Project, (accessed October 20, 2020).
4. Vivian, Interview by Poussaint.
5. Vivian, Interview by Poussaint.
6. “SCLC Seeks Help from St. Louis Area,” Selma Times-Journal, 1 June 1965.
7. King, Annual Report, Address at SCLC’s Ninth Annual National Convention, 11 August 1965.
8. Vivian, Interview by Crowe.
9. Vivian, “Interview with Rev. C. T. Vivian: Civil Rights Activist,” Interview by J. Q. Adams, Western Illinois University, 16 September 2010, (accessed October 20, 2020).
10. C. T. Vivian Leadership Institute, “Our Male Scholars Program,” (accessed October 20, 2020).