O'Dell, Jack (Jack H.)

Biography:

"A valued organizer and fundraiser, who was unapologetic about his early Communist associations, Hunter Pitts "Jack" O'Dell ranks among the most controversial figures of the civil rights movement. His role in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was used by detractors as ammunition against both Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement at large. As O'Dell wrote to King upon his departure from SCLC: "Not the least formidable of the obstacles blocking the path to Freedom is the anti-Communist hysteria in our country which is deliberately kept alive by the defenders of the status-quo as a barrier to rational thinking on important social questions" (O'Dell, 12 July 1963)."--King Encyclopedia, retrieved February 13, 2008.

Alternate Names:

O'Dell, Hunter Pitts

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