YOU CAN credit many leaders with helping to bring voting rights to the previously disenfranchised; President Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr. and Medgar Evers all played key roles.
You can also credit the Rev. Hosea Williams, the medal-winning war veteran who died last week at the age of 74.
Mr. Williams marched with passion and pride alongside King to fulfill the promises of the 15th Amendment. He helped lead the famous march from Selma, Ala., to Montgomery in 1965 that focused the nation's attention on the quest by black people for denied voting rights. State troopers met the marchers with nightsticks and tear gas, which sparked a second march and, ultimately, passage of the 1965 federal voting rights law.
Mr. Williams dedicated much of his life to a movement whose importance is evident every Election Day.
