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Bernard Lee (October 2, 1935 – February 10, 1991) was an activist and member of the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African Americans, African-American civil rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., ...
during the Civil Rights Movement. He was a key associate of
Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, civil and political rights, civil rights activist and political philosopher who was a leader of the civil rights move ...


Civil Rights Movement

Lee began his civil rights career as a student at Alabama State College, from which he was expelled after leading more than half the student body in a march on the Alabama capitol. During demonstrations for equal library access in 1960, he said: "My grandfather had only a prayer to help him. I have a prayer and an education." Bernard Lee was a courageous student activist, a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). While attending Alabama State University (ASU), he led a sit-in at the Alabama state capitol cafeteria. He was expelled from ASU for the event after the governor threatened the university president, saying he would withhold funding from the HBCU if Lee was not expelled. So, he transferred to Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Georgia to work with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and Martin Luther King Jr, where he contributed to the Poor People's Campaign and was at King's side after his assassination. Lee later worked for the U.S. Government under President Carter and for Washington D.C. under Mayor Barry (Source NAACP 2014) (http://www.blackpast.org/aah/morris-brown-college-1885) Lee was King's personal assistant and traveling companion for many years. He was arrested with King in 1960 and left the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and later, the Student National Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emer ...
(SNCC) in 1961 so that he could work full-time with King and the SCLC. He participated in the 1961
Freedom Rides Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions '' Morgan v. Virginia' ...
and helped to orchestrate the
Birmingham Campaign The Birmingham campaign, also known as the Birmingham movement or Birmingham confrontation, was an American movement organized in early 1963 by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to bring attention to the integration efforts ...
in 1963."Lee, Bernard Scott (1935–1991)", ''Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute'', accessed 7 November 2012. He went to Chicago with King in 1965. In January 1967, he was one of few in to accompany King to Jamaica while he wrote '' Where Do We Go From Here?'' Lee was closer to King than any other member of the Civil Rights Movement, so much that by some accounts he began to identify with King completely. According to historian Taylor Branch: "Lee had already come to dress like King, walk like King, and even to imitate King's long, measured phrases." Lee worked on the Poor People's Campaign after King's death in 1968. He also became vice president of the SCLC, which diminished in power over the following years. Lee was directly privy to FBI targeting of King under
COINTELPRO COINTELPRO (a syllabic abbreviation derived from Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert and illegal projects conducted between 1956 and 1971 by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltr ...
, having been present when King received a letter from the FBI urging him to commit suicide. Lee sued the
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
(FBI) in 1977 in an effort to force the destruction of surveillance recordings of King collected during a January 5th, 1963 stay at the
Willard Hotel The Willard InterContinental Washington, commonly known as the Willard Hotel, is a historic luxury Beaux-Arts hotel located at 1401 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Downtown Washington, D.C. It is currently a member of Historic Hotels of America, th ...
in Washington D.C. Judge John Lewis denied Lee's request and ordered the records to be preserved by the
National Archives National archives are the archives of a country. The concept evolved in various nations at the dawn of modernity based on the impact of nationalism upon bureaucratic processes of paperwork retention. Conceptual development From the Middle Ages i ...
and sealed until 2027.


Later life

Lee worked during the Carter administration as a civil rights advisor to the Environmental Protection Agency. During this time he joined with other Black members of the administration to express concern over its policies toward Africa and African Americans. In 1985, Lee received a master's degree in Divinity from
Howard University Howard University is a private, historically black, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and accredited by the Mid ...
, and became the chaplain at Lorton Prison in Virginia. In 1989, he was involved in a public dispute with Ralph Abernathy over Abernathy's book '' And the Walls Came Tumbling Down''. Lee criticized Abernathy's book, which supported rumors about King's extramarital sex life.James S. Kunen, Jane Sanderson, Tom Nugent, Elizabeth Velez,
A Bitter Battle Erupts Over the Last Hours of Martin Luther King
, ''People'' 32(18), 30 October 1989.
Lee died of heart failure in 1991.


See also

* Andrew Young * Timeline of the civil rights movement


References


External links


Photos of Lee
at the Atlanta History Center
Bernard Lee biography
Stanford University Martin Luther King, Jr. Research & Education Institute {{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Bernard American human rights activists 1935 births 1991 deaths University of Alabama alumni Poor People's Campaign