Activist who helped desegregate Birmingham library dies

Associated Press

The man who helped desegregate Birmingham's city library.

Army veteran Shelly Millender Jr. died on Saturday at the age of 86.

Millender was student government president at Miles College where he became active in the Civil Rights movement. He and other students staged a sit-in at the downtown library on April 10, 1963 to protest a policy that banned Black people from the center. Leaders of the library agreed to end segregation shortly after the demonstration.

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