Race And Identity News

Bernard LaFayette, Selma Voting Rights Architect, Dies at 85

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.