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Walter Fauntroy, born in Washington D.C. on February 6, 1933, attended Virginia Union University from 1952-1955, when he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History. In 1958, he earned a Bachelor’s of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School. From 1959 to the present day, Reverend Fauntroy has served as pastor of the New Bethel Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.
A long-time friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he served the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for eleven years (1960-1971) as its director of operations in the nation’s capital: coordination the 1963 March on Washington; the 1965 Selma to Montgomery, Alabama March; and the 1968 Poor Peoples’ March.
In 1970, he was elected to represent the District of Columbia in the House of Representatives, and served in Congress until 1990. Fauntroy was a charter member and chair (1981-1983) of the Congressional Black Caucus; and a driving force behind the legislation establishing the observance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Along with fellow VUU alumnus Randall Robinson, he founded the Free South Africa Movement which proved instrumental in the dismantling of the racist apartheid regime in 1994.
Raymond Pierre Hylton
University Historian
Virginia Union University