Civil rights veteran the Rev. Ed King, who helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, has died

[Tactical Peek]

Throughout his life, King ‘sacrificed himself for the good of the cause, and that cause was justice and service and love,’ said former Assistant Secretary of State Constance Slaughter-Harvey.

by Jerry Mitchell July 5, 2026

The Rev. Ed King, a white minister who challenged Mississippi’s dangerously segregated society in the 1960s and was one of the last living founders of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, died Saturday in Jackson on the same day the nation celebrated its 250th birthday of freedom. He was 89.

“He truly heard Jesus’ commands for us: loving your neighbor, meting out justice, taking care of the least of these and loving your enemy,” recalled former Assistant Secretary of State Constance Slaughter-Harvey.

At the time she met King in 1964, she was a sophomore at Tougaloo College, a private historically Black college in Jackson, where he served as chaplain and a sponsor for civil rights meetings. He supported her and the movement over and over, she said.

On May 28, 1963, King assisted Tougaloo students who engaged in a peaceful sit-in to integrate the Woolworth’s lunch counter in downtown Jackson. A white mob taunted and attacked the group, dumping ketchup, mustard, sugar and salt on them them and brutally beating and kicking student Memphis Norman until he passed out. Among the students engaged in the sit-in were Anne Moody, who later wrote the memoir “Coming of Age in Mississippi,” and Joan Trumpauer, now known as Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, the first white student to attend Tougaloo.

more... https://mississippitoday.org/2026/07/05/civil-rights-veteran-ed-king-died/

[niyad]

1. Rest in power, brave soul.