James Orange, 65, Civil Rights Pioneer
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James Orange, a lieutenant of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference who worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement, died Saturday after surgery at an Atlanta hospital. He was 65.
Orange marched in his hometown of Birmingham, Ala., in 1963 alongside King and the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, to help integrate facilities and transportation. He lived in southwest Atlanta for more than four decades.
As project coordinator with the SCLC from 1965 to 1970, Orange later became a regional coordinator with the AFL-CIO in Atlanta, where he incorporated King’s nonviolence philosophy and promoted unity between national labor leaders and King’s “beloved community.” He retired in 2005. Since 1995, Orange served as the general coordinator of the Martin Luther King Jr. March Committee-Africa/African-American Renaissance Committee. The organization coordinates the country’s most watched and heavily attended events of the King national holiday. It also promoted trade between Atlanta and America with South Africa.
