Dr. Gwendolyn Z. Simmons
2017
Professor of Religion at UF, Dr. Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons is a UF professor of religion who participated in Freedom Summer in Mississippi in 1964. A former leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Laurel, Mississippi and Atlanta, Georgia, Simmons instituted a sexual harassment policy to protect the female volunteers of the project. Because of her reputation as an “Amazon,” who, “didn’t take any s***, especially off of men,” the Laurel Project was referred to as the “Amazon Project.” Dr. Simmons, a Sufi Muslim, draws on the compassion and inclusiveness of her faith in her work as a community organizer, scholar and writer. In 2016, at the invitation of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, she lectured in four European countries about the history and meaning of the African American freedom movement.
This vignette features clips from an interview with Dr. Simmons in which she details the beginning of the Laurel Project.