Doris Derby

photographer, educator, civil rights activist

Doris Derby is an educator and artist who was involved in the American Civil Rights Movement. She was a founding member of the New York branch of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. She then traveled to Mississippi to organize an adult literacy program at Tougaloo College. While in Mississippi, she co-founded the Free Southern Theater, which aimed to educate southern African-Americans about their history and about the civil rights movement. When the FST moved to New Orleans in 1965, Derby remained in Mississippi, working as an educator, organizer, and artist until 1972.