A Rochester civil rights icon has died at age 88. Minister Franklin Florence, Senior Pastor of the Central United Church of Christ, died Wednesday morning according to his family.
Florence was the first president of Freedom, Independence, God, Honor Today…known as FIGHT. The civil rights organization was founded in the wake of Rochester’s 1964 riot, and pushed in the 1960s and 1970s for Rochester’s major employers to hire minorities. Florence worked with other prominent civil rights activists including Malcolm X, who was in Rochester with Florence just five days before his assassination in 1965.
Funeral arrangements are still being made.