Civil rights leader co-founded SCLC

The Rev. Simmie Lee Harvey, 90, a civil rights stalwart who worked alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and helped plan the march on Washington in 1963, died Sept. 10 in New Orleans of complications from a stroke, according to Rhodes Funeral Home. He had been hospitalized for about two weeks.

Harvey was a co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which was created in 1957 to advance racial equality. The Washington march he helped plan culminated in King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Harvey was born in Jacksonville, Fla., and grew up in St. Joseph, La. He graduated from the Utica Institute in Utica, Miss., and earned master’s and doctoral degrees from Union Baptist College and Theological Seminary.

Harvey was pastor of Zion Travelers First Baptist Church, Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church and Second New Light Missionary Baptist Church, all in New Orleans. He joined Mount Moriah in 1959 and became its pastor in 1967.