This is the 9th in a 10-part series of unidentified photos taken by civil rights photographer Bob Fitch in Alabama 1965-66. Please help preserve voting rights history by sharing these photos, and the ones on the preceding 8 posts with friends, family, and others who may be able to identify these Alabama activists, families and first candidates for office. Please leave comment below or contact Maria Gitin www.thisbrightlightofours.com with IDs, location, date and photo number. Thank you!
Lonnie L Brown, Gees Bend, Wilcox County
Bob Fitch photos ©Bob Fitch Photo Archive Stanford University. All rights reserved.
Wilcox County Freedom Fighters 
The last photo is of Rev. Lonnie Brown. He was an insurance salesman who had to sue land owners because they refused him entry on their property when he was attempting to collect premiums. He was a minister who was active in the Wilcox County.
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Thank you Sheryl. I thought that was him but it didn’t look like another photo I found in a book. He was a real leader in Gees Bend. I met him in 1965 after he and 20 other men marched on the courthouse with Bernard LaFayette and demanded to be registered to vote. A few were allowed in but then their registrations were “voided” so they filed a lawsuit which they finally won, after the 1965 Voting Rights Act passed. And, he was plaintiff in the case you cite, which I write about in “This Bright Light of Ours.”
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