Speaker Biography

MLK Celebration Speaker

Dr. James L. Felder

Former State Congressman and Civil Rights Activist

Jim Felder, a native of Sumter, South Carolina, spent his early adult years in Washington, DC and has lived in Columbia since 1967. He holds a BA Degree from Clark Atlanta University; a Juris Doctor from Howard University School of Law; a Master of Laws from the Atlanta Law School and the Doctorate of Humane Letters from the College of Charleston.

While at Clark Atlanta University he served as president of his freshman and sophomore classes and was elected president of the Student Government Association during his junior year. His signature appears on An Appeal for Human Rights representing the students of Clark College. This was the document that launched the “Sit-Ins” in Atlanta in 1960. He was quarterback and captain of the 1959 and 1960 Panther football team.

After graduating from Howard University in 1967 Jim returned to South Carolina to direct the SC Voter Education Project (VEP). In an eighteen-month period he coordinated a statewide voter registration drive that placed over 200,000 Blacks on the voting rolls. He has served as Executive Vice President of Operation PUSH; Professor and Chair of the Department of Business & Economics at Allen University and Executive Director of the SC Conference of NAACP.

During his military tour of duty, 1962–64, he was selected to head the casket team that bore the body of the late President John F. Kennedy during those “four dark days” in November 1963. He received the Army Commendation Medal for his performance.

In November 1970, Jim Felder along with I. S. Leevy Johnson and Herbert U. Fielding were the first three Blacks to be elected to the SC Legislature since Reconstruction. In 1973 he was appointed the first Black Assistant Solicitor (Prosecutor) in South Carolina. He is a member of the SC Black Hall of Fame, Clark Atlanta University Athletic Hall of Fame and a Life member of the NAACP.

He was initiated into Beta Psi Chapter at Clark College on December 12, 1958 on the campus of the old Gammon Theology Seminary. He was elected the 13th Second Vice Grand Basileus of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity at the 1959 Grand Conclave in New York City and reelected at the 1960 Grand Conclave in San Antonio. At the 1973 Grand Conclave in Saint Louis he was elected Grand Counselor and reelected at the 1974 Grand Conclave in Phoenix, Arizona. The recipient of more than 200 awards and honors, he has lectured on the campuses of more than forty colleges and universities.

Presently, he serves as the Chair of the Board of the South Carolina Civil Rights Museum and curator of the Lincoln High School museum. He is the author of five books: I Buried John F. Kennedy, Civil Rights in South Carolina, The Making of an AME Bishop, The Life and Times of Dr. Luns C. Richardson and From the Farm to the State Capitol: The McKinley Washington, Jr. Story.

He is Steward Pro Tem at Union Station AME Church in Sumter, SC. He is the father of two children, Jimmy and Adrienne, son-in-law Lance Wright, and two grandsons, Lance II and Sean.