Walter Fauntroy

Walter Edward Fauntroy Jr. (born February 6, 1933) is an American pastor, civil rights activist, and politician who was the Washington, D.C. delegate to the United States House of Representatives from 1971 to 1991. He was a candidate for the 1972 and 1976 Democratic presidential nominations as a favorite son. As of July 2025, he is the last remaining survivor of the 13 co-founders of the Congressional Black Caucus.

The fourth of seven children, Walter Fauntroy was born and raised in Washington, D.C.. His mother, Ethel (Vines) Fauntroy, was a homemaker. His father, William Thomas Fauntroy Sr., was a clerk in the U.S. Patent Office. Walter grew up in the Shaw community in Northwest Washington, and attended the New Bethel Baptist Church just a few blocks from his home.

He graduated second in his class at Washington's all-black Dunbar High School in 1951, and the members of his church held fund-raising dinners to provide him with a college scholarship. When he graduated from Dunbar in 1952, his church gave him enough money to pay for his first year at Virginia Union University in Richmond. He pledged Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity while at Virginia Union, where he graduated with honors in 1955, and then earned a B.Div. from Yale Divinity School in 1958.

During his stay at Virginia Union University, Fauntroy met the 22-year-old Martin Luther King Jr., himself an ordained Baptist minister. With much in common, the two men formed a friendship that began with an all-night discussion of theology. Fauntroy joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and upon his return to Washington, D.C., became an influential lobbyist for civil rights in Congress. Fauntroy also helped to coordinate the 1963 March on Washington at which King gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Fauntroy and King watched President John F. Kennedy's 1963 address on civil rights. After the speech, King jumped up and declared, "Walter, can you believe that white man not only stepped up to the plate, he hit it over the fence!"

After completing his education, Fauntroy became pastor of the New Bethel Baptist Church. He returned home with an unorthodox view of Christian service that his parishioners immediately embraced. Believing that religion was something more than a Sunday morning ritual, Fauntroy took part in civil rights demonstrations, sit-ins, and marches – both in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere.

As director of the Washington Bureau of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Fauntroy served as D.C. Coordinator of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, and a coordinator for the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches and the 1966 March Against Fear. President Lyndon Johnson appointed him Vice Chairman of the White House Conference on Civil Rights in 1966 and Vice Chairman of the D.C. City Council in 1967.

Fauntroy also founded and led the Model Inner City Community Organization (MICCO). This organization, which Fauntroy headed until 1971, used federal grants to improve inner city neighborhoods using black architects, city planners, and construction engineers to design and build homes, schools, stores, and other projects in urban Washington. At one time the budget for MICCO was well over $30 million, a community planning and neighborhood development group in Washington, D.C., that established and began to implement the Shaw Urban Renewal Project.

Fauntroy played a key role after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., meeting both with President Johnson and with activist Stokely Carmichael during the immediate aftermath. Fauntroy urged people, in person, on TV, and over radio, to adhere to King's policy of nonviolence. He also led a prayer at King's funeral.