Director of Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964 who organized the poor and disenfranchised of his district into a political force.
He was on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1962, and two years later organized Freedom Summer Project, bringing in blacks by bus and registering them to vote.
Despite police beatings at the infamous Parchman Farm jail in Mississippi, he continued to advocate on behalf of Mississippi blacks.
He was born in Pass Christian, Mississippi, not far from the flashpoints of the Civil Rights Movements.
In his later years he was a frequent guest on Fox News, sparring with Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity on the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement.
