Bernard LaFayette, Civil Rights Leader Who Did the Risky Groundwork for the Voting Rights Act, Dies at 85

Bernard LaFayette Jr., the civil rights leader who did the dangerous advance work in Selma, Alabama, that laid the groundwork for the 1965 Voting Rights Act, has died at the age of 85. LaFayette was one of the original Freedom Riders, survived a beating that left him near death in Selma, and spent decades training nonviolent activists around the world in the methods he and his colleagues perfected during the movement's most dangerous years. His work in Selma -- arriving years before the famous marches to register Black voters in a county where virtually none were allowed to vote -- was among the most perilous assignments in the civil rights movement, requiring a courage that few possess and fewer still sustain over a lifetime. LaFayette's death comes during the same week that John Perkins, another giant of the faith-driven civil rights movement, entered hospice care at 95 -- a reminder that the generation that risked everything for justice is passing from the stage.