Joan C. Browning

Joan Constance Browning is a Freedom Rider and civil rights activist known for her participation in non-violent protests in the southern United States in the 1960s.

Biography Browning was born and raised in rural Georgia, and started college in 1959 at Georgia State College for Women at the age of sixteen. While there she began to be involved in the freedom rider movement, and her involvement in the movement ultimately led to her 1961 dismissal from the college because of her decision to attend a black church.

Browning would go on to graduate from West Virginia State College, now known as West Virginia State University in 1994. and she writes on the historical details of the civil rights movement using biographies such as her article on the activist Fannie Lou Hamer.

Selected publications

Awards and honors In 2000, Browning received the West Virginia Martin Luther King Jr. "Living the Dream Award". In 2005, Browning received the Martin Luther King Achievement Award from West Virginia University. On April 27, 2024, Browning received an honorary Doctor of Letters from Marshall University. On June 8, 2025, Marshall University dedicated an honorary bench on their campus with a plaque reading "West Virginia's Freedom Rider.