Rev. Edwin “Ed” King, one of the last surviving founders of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and a longtime ally of Black Mississippians throughout the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, died on Saturday, July 4, at age 89.
King was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and attended Carr Central High School. He regularly attended church youth meetings at Millsaps College in Jackson and enrolled at the college after his graduation. While raised with a more conservative upbringing, interacting with Black students enrolled at the nearby Tougaloo College influenced him and motivated King, who was white, to become more involved in local civil rights. The United States Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, which desegregated schools and universities nationwide, took place during King’s time at Millsaps.
In the days after desegregation, King began attending interracial meetings at Tougaloo College in Jackson, where he met fellow civil rights leader Medgar Evers. King graduated from Millsaps in 1958 and enrolled at the Boston University School of Theology, where he continued to meet with activists for civil rights and pacifism…