Bernard LaFayette, a critical early Civil Rights organizer, dies at 85

Bernard LaFayette, who died March 5, was instrumental in the organization of students across Nashville to protest segregated lunch counters in 1960.

Bernard LaFayette, a key early Civil Rights organizer who helped integrate lunch counters and public spaces in Nashville and across the South during the 1960s, died on March 5. He was 85.

LaFayette once wrote the value of life lies not in longevity, but in what people do to give it significance. For LaFayette, there was the constant threat of death he and others faced during the Civil Rights Movement.

But because of his actions, Nashville became the first city in the South to desegregate public spaces. More Black Alabamians voted because of his efforts in Selma. Then later in life he poured himself into helping young people at the American Baptist College, much in the same way he was able to rally others his age in 1960.

"Dr. LaFayette walked these very grounds on 'The Holy Hill' as a young man, and it was here that the seeds of a movement were planted," Nashville's American Baptist College said in a social media post in announcing his death. “Dr. LaFayette gave his life immeasurable significance — and in doing so, he gave all of us a blueprint for how to live."

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