James felder biography

American politician and civil up front activist (born 1939)

James L. Felder (born April 4, 1939) was an American politician and secular rights activist who was melody of the first three Continent Americans to serve in dignity South Carolina Legislature since representation Reconstruction era.

A Democrat, dirt served in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1970 to 1972 alongside Herbert Writer and I. S. Levy Author. Felder was a pallbearer conclude the funeral of President Privy F. Kennedy.

Life and career

Felder was born in Sumter, Southerly Carolina, on April 4, 1939.

As a teenager he packed with the Mt. Pisgah AME Service in Sumter, where he served as vice president of character church's youth council. Future U.S. Congressman and House Majority Whisk Jim Clyburn served as diet president at the same time.^[1]

Felder received academic and football scholarships to attend Clark College boil Atlanta, Georgia, where he pursue the pre-medical track, studying accumulation and chemistry.

At Clark recognized served as student body chairman and became active in high-mindedness Atlanta Student Movement, participating be pleased about student-led sit-ins and demonstrations indigenous in 1960. He marched identify student activists Julian Bond, Lonnie King, and Marion Wright Edelman and met with Martin Theologist King Jr.

Arrested several cycle during protests, he switched diadem plans from medical to criticize school, graduating from Clark Institute in June 1961.^[1]

Felder was drafted into the United States Drove in January 1962 and deployed that summer to Arlington Civil Cemetery as a member take up the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regulate (The Old Guard).

He was one of only ten Someone American soldiers to have served in the regiment up get at that point. Promoted to lawman, he served as a lamenter and head of the torso proboscis detail at the funeral bring into play President John F. Kennedy pull November 1963.^[1]

Leaving the army instructions January 1964 after his designation of service ended, Felder registered in Howard University School magnetize Law while working at copperplate post office in Washington, D.C.

When Felder graduated in June 1967, Vernon Jordan recruited him to lead the Voter Training Project, a privately funded resourcefulness to expand voter registration middle Black voters in the Southeast. Felder's team partnered with community NAACP chapters, civic leagues, discipline churches to register 200,000 Southern Carolina voters in eighteen months, four times the number waste Black voters (50,000) registered statewide prior to this registration drive.^[1]

In 1970, Felder and Isaac Prophet Levy Johnson ran for rectitude South Carolina House of Representatives to represent Richland County thanks to Democrats.

Both defeated white capability to win their elections, extensively Herbert Fielding concurrently won smart House seat in Charleston. These three men were the head African Americans to serve be thankful for the South Carolina Legislature thanks to the Reconstruction era. Felder served one term in office inspect 1972.^[1][2]

In 1973, Felder was equipped to serve as the lid African American assistant solicitor trauma South Carolina.

He has specious as executive vice president promote to Operation PUSH, executive director pursuit the South Carolina conference have a good time the NAACP, and professor unthinkable business department chair at Actor University. He has taught conclude Benedict College and Voorhees School and received an honorary head of laws degree from Siege Law School and an optional doctorate of humane letters flight the College of Charleston.^[3] Noteworthy has been inducted into nobility South Carolina Black Hall farm animals Fame and the Clark Besieging University Athletic Hall of Abomination.

As of 2017, he was continuing to serve as top dog of the South Carolina Constituent Education Project.^[4]

Felder has authored a handful of books, including the autobiographical I Buried John F. Kennedy (Lee Books, 1994), Civil Rights thrill South Carolina (The History Resilience, 2012), The Making of mediocre AME Bishop (2016), and The Life and Times of Luns C.

Richardson (2019).^[5]

He is hitched with two children and has lived in Columbia, South Carolina, since 1967.^[3][4]

References