Civil Rights Gladiator Goes Home

By Joseph Green Bishop
Arise Rejoice News Service

Reverend Frederick Douglass Taylor, whose presence in the American Civil Rights Movement was critically important, passed on Friday evening at Tranquility Hospice in Austell, GA. He was 81.

A lieutenant to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mrs. Rosa Parks, and the Reverends Joseph Lowery, Ralph David Abernathy, and Ambassador Andrew Young, he served in various capacities at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in Atlanta for more than 40 years.

Taylor died from respiratory failure, said his daughter, Vonya, who held her father in her arms as his life slipped away.

“My daddy always taught me, his grandchildren and his great-grandchildren to be quality people,” Ms. Taylor said. “He believed that the highest calling in life was to serve others, and to improve the human condition.”

Ms. Taylor said that Rev. Taylor, who was born in Prattville, AL, began his mornings well before dawn in prayer and reflection. He then turned to physical exercise.

“At six in the morning he began a two-hour jog and walk through the streets of Atlanta,” she said. “He continued to do that until 18 months ago when he became ill.”

The late Maynard Jackson, the first African American elected to lead the city of Atlanta as Mayor, once said that Rev.Taylor, who he knew well, was “an engineer of social change in Atlanta, in Georgia and in the United States.”

Dallas Civil Rights Leader, Rev. Peter Johnson, who joined the Civil Rights movement as a youth as did Rev. Taylor, said that his friend was “fully committed to remaking the world, and to giving those who lived on the margins of American society a brighter future.”

Raised by his grandmother whom he affectionately called “Ma-Dear,” Rev. Taylor initially thought of pursuing a career in medicine.

After completing undergraduate school at Alabama State University, he earned a Masters Degree in Divinity from the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta in 1969.

That same year he took a position at the SCLC, with plans to remain for only two years. His childhood pastor in Alabama, Rev. Abernathy, headed the organization when Taylor joined its professional staff.

“It was never my goal to be in leadership,” Rev. Taylor, a re- splendent rose in the Civil Rights garden, once said. “ It was my sole objective to serve others, to support and encourage them.

“I was not interested in making a personal fortune. “Being part of substantive social change for all people enriched me greatly.”

An associate pastor at Trinity Baptist Church in Decatur, GA, Rev. Taylor spoke at churches and rallies throughout the nation.

He was one of the final living connections to Dr. King, Mrs. Coretta Scott King, Dr. Lowery, Mrs. Parks, Congressman John Lewis, NAACP board chairman Julian Bond, Reverend Mamie Williams, Ambassador Young and Reverend Hosea Williams, all Civil Rights legends.

In addition to his daughter, Vonya; Rev. Taylor’s survivors include five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren; his former wife, Ms. Carolyn Yvonne McDaniel; his uncle, Isaac Bates; his 96-year-old aunt, Ms. Lillian Bates; his Trinity Baptist Church family; and, his SCLC family.