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…