Wyatt Tee Walker (1928-2018)

Wyatt Tee Walker, pastor of Gillfield Baptist Church from 1953 to 1960, served as president of the Petersburg branch of the NAACP and as Virginia director of the Congress of Racial Equality. He worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and for several years was his chief of staff. In 1960 Walker became the first full-time executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He helped organize major civil rights protests including the Birmingham (Alabama) Movement and the March on Washington. For 37 years Walker was pastor of Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem, NY. In 1978 he organized the International Freedom Mobilization to combat apartheid in South Africa.