Mathew Ahmann

Mathew H. Ahmann (September 10, 1931 – December 31, 2001) was an American Catholic layman and civil rights activist. He was a leader of the Catholic Church's involvement in the civil rights movement, and in 1960 founded and became the executive director of the National Catholic Council for Interracial Justice.

By initiating the 1963 National Conference on Religion and Race, Ahmann worked to establish the civil rights movement as a moral cause. He was one of four white men, along with Walter Reuther, Eugene Carson Blake, and Rabbi Joachim Prinz, who joined the "Big Six" to organize the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. He gave a speech during the march that preceded the "I Have a Dream" speech of Martin Luther King Jr. Following the civil rights movement, he directed several civil rights and Catholic service initiatives. He is not commonly thought of when thinking of the civil rights movement but has been said to have acted as a catalyst for the Catholic Church's involvement in the movement. Provided by Wikipedia