Come join us for our monthly 7:30pm meeting… a little bit of business, always an informative speaker on an interesting, relevant topic, and a time to meet and socialize with progressives who want to make positive changes in local and national politics.

February is going to be great!  In honor of Black History Month, we are proud and honored to welcome Tom Armstrong, NTDO Democratic election judge and author of Autobiography of a Freedom Rider (published in May, 2011) as our featured speaker.

In 1955, Mr. Armstrong, born in Mississippi, was 14 years old at the same time as Emmitt Till, another 14-year-old visiting Mississippi from Chicago, who was kidnapped, tortured and murdered for whistling at a white woman. Three years later, as a Tougaloo College student, Mr. Armstrong became active in the civil rights struggle of that time. At the request of the Illinois Arts Council, Mr. Armstrong has been speaking to civic and community groups throughout Illinois.

Amazon Book Description

In the Segregated Deep South, When Lynching and Klansmen and Jim Crow laws ruled, there stood a line of foot soldiers ready to sacrifice their lives for the right to vote, to enter rooms marked ‘White Only,’ and to live with simple dignity. They were called Freedom Riders, and Thomas M. Armstrong was one of them. This is his story.