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Activist E. D. Nixon
E. D. Nixon (1899–1987) was born in Lowndes County, Alabama, the son of Wesley Nixon, a Baptist preacher, and Sue Chapell Nixon, a maid. He had little formal education. He worked as a Pullman porter from 1923 to 1964 and was mentored by union leader A. Philip Randolph. Nixon founded the Montgomery Division of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1938. During the 1940s he organized the Alabama Voters League and served as president of the NAACP Montgomery branch and its state conference. In 1954 Nixon became the first black man to run for public office in Montgomery since Reconstruction. The following year he helped lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott. |