Raymond Arsenault, the John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History at the University of South Florida, will discuss his research on the Freedom Riders at a public lecture on Monday, Nov. 18 at 4 p.m. in Wall Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

The first Freedom Riders were members of the Nashville Student Group, a local group of students who had successfully desegregated the lunch counters and movie theaters in the early 1960s. Emboldened by their victory, the Freedom Riders decided to introduce their strategies of non-violence throughout the South in order to directly challenge the region's Jim Crow laws.

Arsenault earned a Ph.D. in history from Brandeis University in 1981.

The event is being held in conjunction with the fall induction ceremony of Coastal's chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, a national honor society for history majors.

The discussion is sponsored by the Psi-Mu chapter of Phi Alpha Theta in conjunction with the Waccamaw Center for Cultural and Historical Studies.