NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Rev. Simmie Lee Harvey, a civil rights stalwart who worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and helped plan the March on Washington in 1963, has died. He was 90.
Harvey died Sept. 10 of complications from a stroke, according to Rhodes Funeral Home. He had been hospitalized for about two weeks before his death.
Harvey was a co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which was created in 1957 by King and other leaders from across the South with the purpose of advancing racial equality.
“Rev. Harvey was one of the original leaders of SCLC,” Dr. Joseph Lowery, a former president of the group for 20 years said in a statement. “He was a genuine and authentic person. He wore the badge of SCLC on his coat and in his heart.”
Harvey helped plan the March on Washington, which culminated with King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
Harvey was born in Jacksonville, Fla., and grew up in St. Joseph, La. He graduated from the Utica Institute in Utica, Miss., and earned master’s and doctoral degrees from Union Baptist College and Theological Seminary.
The SCLC said one of Harvey’s last public appearances was in July at the group’s 50th annual convention in New Orleans — the city where the group was founded.
Harvey “passionately pleaded for everyone in the room to recommit themselves to the civil rights movement,” the civil right’s group said in a statement on its Web site. “He spoke of the hardships, trials and tribulations that he had to endure while fighting for justice and equality throughout this country.
The group’s current president and chief executive, Charles Steele Jr., said in a statement that Harvey was one of the most effective civil rights leaders of his time.
“He was somebody who could captivate you with his stories of the movement,” Steele said.
Harvey was presiding at a meeting of the Research Missionary Baptist Association when he suffered the stroke, the Rev. Norwood Thompson, a longtime friend, told The Times-Picayune.
Harvey worked as a longshoreman and was pastor of Zion Travelers First Baptist Church, Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church and Second New Light Missionary Baptist Church. He joined Mount Moriah in 1959 and became its pastor in 1967.
Harvey’s survivors include a son, Salim Khalid of Atlanta, and a daughter, Gloria H. Jackson of Mount Vernon, Ga.
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