All articles tagged with #bernard lafayette
Bernard LaFayette III, a key organizer who built the Alabama voter-registration drive that helped propel the 1965 Voting Rights Act, died at 85; a Nashville-born SNCC veteran who led nonviolent campaigns, he helped mobilize Selma and trained leaders who advanced civil rights across the South and beyond.
Bernard LaFayette, 85, the Nashville-born organizer who quietly built local leadership for Selma’s 1963 voter-registration drive and helped propel the march that contributed to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, died of a heart attack. A cofounder of SNCC and longtime ally of Martin Luther King Jr., LaFayette’s nonviolent leadership influenced desegregation efforts in the South and beyond, including Chicago, and he later held academic and peace-building roles, leaving a global legacy of nonviolence.