Civil rights leader Bernard LaFayette dies, days before being honored at Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee

Bernard LaFayette, civil rights leader who was scheduled to be honored at the Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee this weekend, passed away on Thursday.

Bernard LaFayette III told the Associated Press that his father died Thursday morning of a heart attack. He was 85.

LaFayette Jr. is the third civil rights leader with strong Selma ties to die in the last two weeks leading up to the 61^st Selma Bridge Crossing Jubilee. Rev. Jesse Jackson civil rights activist died on Feb. 17. Selma native Joanne Bland, founder of Foot Soldiers Park and herself a child foot soldier, died on Feb. 19.

LaFayette was a key leader in preparing Selma to be the site for the protests and march for equal voting rights in 1965. He was also a regular speaker at the Bridge Crossing Jubilee events that recreated and commemorated Bloody Sunday when police beat protestors in the Selma-to-Montgomery march in March 1965.

In 2022, the City of Selma named May 14 Dr. Bernard Lafayette Jr. Day with the theme "Voting Rights and Me." 

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LaFayette was scheduled to be honored with the Martin & Coretta King International Lifetime Peace & Justice Award this Sunday at the Martin & Coretta King Unity Breakfast at Craig Field Airport & Industrial Authority in Selma.

Hank Sanders, Jubilee organizer, called LaFayette a great man. 

“He had the courage to come to Selma when others shied away,” Sanders said in a statement. “He had the foresight to come to Selma when others could not see how that made sense. He contributed tremendously to the Voting Rights Movement, but he did not stop there. Dr. Lafayette contributed to peace and nonviolence every day of his life. This is a great loss to his family. This is also a great loss to me and my family and to all humanity.”

The Unity Breakfast’s program honored LaFayette with this:

“Rev. Dr. Bernard Lafayette is a legendary civil rights leader and minister who has devoted his life to disciplined nonviolence and the work of justice. As a young leader in the Nashville Student Movement and a co-founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he helped organize and lead sit-ins, Freedom Rides, and other nonviolent campaigns. For his courage and commitment, he was arrested, imprisoned and brutally beaten, yet he remained steadfast in the belief that dignity can be won without hatred. Rev. Dr. Lafayette was a primary organizer of the Selma Voting Rights Movement and the Selma to Montgomery marches, efforts instrumental in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As a chief strategist, he helped choose Selma because it was considered the most resistant to change in the South. He organized mass meetings, strengthened local leadership, and trained people in nonviolence to withstand arrests, threats, and beatings and persevere. Just before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. asked him to lead the Poor People’s Campaign to Washington, D.C. In the decades since, Rev. Dr. Lafayette has continued to teach and train new generations throughout the nation and the world in the principles of nonviolence, conflict transformation, and community building. In recognition of his lifetime of peacemaking and justice-centered leadership, the Selma to Montgomery March Foundation proudly honors Rev. Dr. Bernard Lafayette with the 2026 Martin & Coretta King International Lifetime Peace & Justice Award.”