Early Rides
Jacob Reitan, a 23-year-old Christian activist from Minnesota and director of youth programs for Soulforce, initiated the rides. In 2005, he conducted trial runs at Liberty University in the spring and at the U.S. Naval Academy in the fall. At Liberty University he spoke informally students. According to organizers, they tried without success to donate books about homosexuality to the library. Reitan said they asked the University to designate some place on campus where students could talk about being gay without fear of being expelled or having their parents informed. They were also unable to turn over to Jerry Falwell, the university's founder and chancellor, anonymous letters written, they said, by gay Liberty students. When asked about the school's policies toward gay students, a spokesman said "we follow Scripture."
Read more about this topic: Equality Ride
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or rides:
“I realized how for all of us who came of age in the late sixties and early seventies the war was a defining experience. You went or you didn’t, but the fact of it and the decisions it forced us to make marked us for the rest of our lives, just as the depression and World War II had marked my parents.”
—Linda Grant (b. 1949)
“One who rides a tiger will find it hard to dismount.”
—Chinese proverb.