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Congressman Cohen Remembers Civil Rights Leader Reverend C. T. Vivian

July 17, 2020

Respected clergyman was a field general for Dr. King

MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) today paid his respects to the Reverend C.T. Vivian, a leader of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s who died today in Atlanta at the age of 95.

Congressman Cohen made the following statement:

"C.T. Vivian was one of the most effective and active leaders in the Civil Rights campaign in the '60s and '70s as well as the most articulate spokesman for the movement in Birmingham and across the South. Reverend Vivian was one of the most effective and respected leaders nationally, serving as the national director the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, including his work with Diane Nash and John Lewis in the Nashville campaign. I was fortunate to get to know him on his travels to Memphis, including at the annual April 4th Foundation's tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In 2008, I met him as he visited the event with Harry Belafonte, John Conyers, the Reverend Joseph Lowery and other Civil Rights leaders. No one was more respected and more dynamic than the Reverend C.T. Vivian."

The Reverend C.T. Vivian received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013 from President Barack Obama.