Civil rights legend Vincent Harding died this week (May 19). He was 82. Harding was a religion scholar, activist, and sometime-speechwriter for Martin Luther King Jr, and he played a pivotal role in the civil rights movement. A long-time professor at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Harding was a popular speaker and author. We spoke with him last year about the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington:

“That anniversary that we celebrate is not the anniversary of a speech, but the anniversary of a very important point in history, when black people were leading a movement to expand democracy, to deepen democracy, and to make democracy more faithful to its own sayings.”