Sheldon Hall Ballroom was filled to capacity on Wednesday night when Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, an American civil rights activist and freedom rider from Arlington, Virginia, spoke at Oswego State. She shared her experience with sit-ins and other known voices in the civil rights movement.

By the time Mulholland was 19 years old, she had participated in over three dozen sit-ins and protests for the civil rights movement. Mulholland was involved in one of the most well-known and violent sit-ins at the Jackson Woolworth lunch counter.

“Sitting down is a fine way to make your point,” Mulholland said.

Mulholland attended Duke University where she joined the Delta Sigma Theta sorority and began her quest to fight for civil rights. She never believed that violence was a way to solve issues so she became a part of the freedom riders and joined sit-ins, Mulholland said.

She realized at the age of 10 that she was not ok with the way black people were treated in America, but it took her until college to do something about it.

Mulholland started her talk by saying “revolution is a stream that flows and flows.” In reference to the recent presidential election, she was saying that revolution never stops, so it needs to continue even with Donald Trump as president.

She has found that voting is becoming harder to participate in because voting places are disappearing. Though everyone has the right to vote in 2016, Mulholland said she believes that it is becoming more difficult to vote. When she asked her son how he felt about the 2016 election, he said, “We shall overcome,” a popular saying that activists used every day during the civil rights movement.

The civil rights sit-ins were not the only ones she participated in; Mulholland also participated in the anti-Vietnam war student movement.

Mulholland attended these sit ins and witnessed many fellow students get arrested during these events while attending Duke. The people that got arrested would yell, “jail no bail,” when they were arrested at the lunch counters. They would stay in jail cells to continue these sit ins. Activists put out calls to other student activists to tell them to get arrested so they could join the sit ins at the jail. Diane Nash, a civil rights activist from Nashville, Tennessee, joined that cause as well.

The jail got so filled from these activists that freedom riders had to be put on death row to intimidate others. Mulholland was one of these people put on death row.

One of the main points that Mulholland brought up during her talk was that the press need to be respected as well during these protests.

“Press puts the information out in the world, reporting on what happens during these sit ins so it’s important to respect them,” Mulholland said. “If the media gets hurt during the sit-ins, then we get hurt. They’re our shield from the outside world.”

During the question and answer part of Mulholland’s talk, Oswego State President Deborah Stanley asked, “Is the media still really covering information that we really need to know in 2016 or do you think it’s hiding a lot of information from us?”

Mulholland believes that the media in 2016 is a “double-edged sword” with reporting facts and also twisting it to make us feel a certain way, but she still respects the press.

She wanted to stress that non-violence is the way to go when protesting and it is good to make alliances, even if you don’t agree with people’s views.

Mulholland’s son made a movie called, “An Ordinary Hero,” about her experiences with the civil rights movement. She has received many awards for her commitment to the cause.