According to a statement by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, James Orange died in the hospital. He was from Birmingham, Alabama and lived in Atlanta for about forty years fighting the good fight to achieve both equality and justice for everybody.
In 1965, Orange was arrested in Perry County, Alabama. He was getting students to help him with voting rights drives. Orange was arrested and jailed on charges of disorderly conduct. For his actions of getting students to aid in voting drives, Orange was also charged for contributing to minors’ delinquency.
There would rumors that were spread that Orange could be lynched while he was in jail. That had sparked a march to support him. The demonstrators crossed paths with Alabama state troopers on February 18, 1965. Monday will mark the anniversary of the protests.
The march was labeled as the “Bloody Sunday” march when a young black man named Jimme Lee Johnson was shot in the stomach. He was only 26 and died eight days later.
“I could hear the singing and the commotion,” Orange said in a CNN interview last year. He added: “Once the tear gas was flying and the shots started, I couldn’t tell what was going on.”
The death had caused many including Martin Luther King Jr. to organize various civil rights marches.
“Jimmie’s death is the reason that Bloody Sunday took place,” Orange explained. He adds: “Had he not died, there would never have been a Bloody Sunday.”
In 2007, James B. Fowler a former state trooper who is now 74 was indicted in Jackson’s killing. He insists that shooting Jackson was in self-defense.
Orange leaves behind a wife, five children, and two grandchildren.
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