Bernard LaFayette, Selma Organizer, Dies at 85
Bernard LaFayette died of a heart attack at 85 after Selma voter-registration work, Freedom Rides and global nonviolence training.
The GuardianBernard LaFayette, civil rights leader who helped launch Voting Rights Act, dies aged 85
PBS NewsHourBernard LaFayette, Freedom Rider and Selma voting rights organizer, dies at 85
ABC NewsBernard LaFayette, Selma voting rights organizer, dies at 85
Chicago TribuneBernard LaFayette, Selma voting rights organizer and leader with the Chicago Freedom Movement, dies at 85
CNNBernard LaFayette, Selma voting rights organizer, has died | CNN
Overview
Bernard LaFayette's son, Bernard LaFayette III, said his father died Thursday morning of a heart attack at age 85.
LaFayette's advance work for the Alabama Voter Registration Campaign in 1963 helped set the stage for Selma and the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
DeMark Liggins, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said Thursday that LaFayette's legacy lives in the thousands if not hundreds of thousands he helped in America and abroad.
LaFayette was one of more than 300 Freedom Riders sent to Parchman Prison after being beaten and arrested during the 1961 rides.
By 1968 he was national coordinator of the Poor People's Campaign and later directed the Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies at the University of Rhode Island.
Analysis
Center-leaning sources frame LaFayette as a reverent, nonviolent civil-rights hero by emphasizing his risky groundwork in Selma, personal ordeals and quiet leadership. They prioritize chronology linking his actions to national victories, highlight testimonials from prominent figures, and select humanizing anecdotes—structural and language choices that shape a celebratory, legacy-focused narrative.
FAQ
Bernard LaFayette participated in the 1961 Freedom Rides as a member of SNCC and CORE, where he was beaten and arrested, leading to imprisonment in Parchman Prison with over 300 other riders.
In 1963, he conducted advance work for voter registration in Selma through SNCC, enduring a severe beating, which helped set the stage for the 1965 Selma marches and the Voting Rights Act.
By 1968, Bernard LaFayette served as national coordinator of the Poor People's Campaign for the SCLC, organizing encampments like Resurrection City in Washington, D.C., after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination.
He co-founded SNCC in 1960, trained gangs in Chicago on nonviolence, directed the Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies at the University of Rhode Island, and internationalized Kingian nonviolence globally.
