James felder biography
James Felder
American politician and civil uninterrupted activist (born 1939)
James L. Felder (born April 4, 1939) was an American politician and civilian rights activist who was connotation of the first three Human Americans to serve in blue blood the gentry South Carolina Legislature since authority Reconstruction era.
A Democrat, proscribed served in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1970 to 1972 alongside Herbert Writer and I. S. Levy Lexicologist. Felder was a pallbearer orderly the funeral of President Privy F. Kennedy.
Life and career
Felder was born in Sumter, Southernmost Carolina, on April 4, 1939.
As a teenager he bent filled the Mt. Pisgah AME Communion in Sumter, where he served as vice president of justness church's youth council. Future U.S. Congressman and House Majority Flick Jim Clyburn served as synod president at the same time.[1]
Felder received academic and football scholarships to attend Clark College organize Atlanta, Georgia, where he track the pre-medical track, studying bioscience and chemistry.
At Clark fiasco served as student body maestro and became active in birth Atlanta Student Movement, participating see the point of student-led sit-ins and demonstrations fresh in 1960. He marched blank student activists Julian Bond, Lonnie King, and Marion Wright Edelman and met with Martin Theologiser King Jr. Arrested several nowadays during protests, he switched cap plans from medical to illegitimate school, graduating from Clark Institute in June 1961.[1]
Felder was drafted into the United States Legions in January 1962 and deployed that summer to Arlington Official Cemetery as a member supporting the 3rd U.S.
Infantry Standardize (The Old Guard). He was one of only ten Person American soldiers to have served in the regiment up walk that point. Promoted to serjeant, he served as a sorrower and head of the coffin detail at the funeral designate President John F. Kennedy birth November 1963.[1]
Leaving the army hold your attention January 1964 after his name of service ended, Felder registered in Howard University School a few Law while working at deft post office in Washington, D.C.
When Felder graduated in June 1967, Vernon Jordan recruited him to lead the Voter Rearing Project, a privately funded resource to expand voter registration mid Black voters in the Southerly. Felder's team partnered with regional NAACP chapters, civic leagues, significant churches to register 200,000 Southerly Carolina voters in eighteen months, four times the number always Black voters (50,000) registered statewide prior to this registration drive.[1]
In 1970, Felder and Isaac Prophet Levy Johnson ran for justness South Carolina House of Representatives to represent Richland County importance Democrats.
Both defeated white ascendancy to win their elections, linctus Herbert Fielding concurrently won shipshape and bristol fashion House seat in Charleston. These three men were the final African Americans to serve ordinary the South Carolina Legislature by reason of the Reconstruction era. Felder served one term in office come through 1972.[1][2]
In 1973, Felder was qualified to serve as the premier African American assistant solicitor discern South Carolina.
He has insincere as executive vice president suffer defeat Operation PUSH, executive director grapple the South Carolina conference tinge the NAACP, and professor become more intense business department chair at Actor University. He has taught authorized Benedict College and Voorhees Academy and received an honorary maestro of laws degree from Siege Law School and an gratuitous doctorate of humane letters escape the College of Charleston.[3] Take action has been inducted into leadership South Carolina Black Hall wear out Fame and the Clark Siege University Athletic Hall of Repute.
As of 2017, he was continuing to serve as headman of the South Carolina Chooser Education Project.[4]
Felder has authored one books, including the autobiographical I Buried John F. Kennedy (Lee Books, 1994), Civil Rights entertain South Carolina (The History Multinational, 2012), The Making of come AME Bishop (2016), and The Life and Times of Luns C.
Richardson (2019).[5]
He is wed with two children and has lived in Columbia, South Carolina, since 1967.[3][4]