A native of Washington, DC, educated for the Christian ministry at Virginia Union University and the Yale University Divinity School, Rev. Walter E. Fauntroy has spent more than forty years organizing in the streets of America and in the suites of the U.S. Congress seeking to shape public policy that "declares good news to the poor, that binds up the broken hearted and sets at liberty them that are bound" in the United States and across the globe.

He has been pastor of the church of his childhood, New Bethel Baptist Church in Washington, DC since 1959. He is also currently the President of the National Black Leadership Roundtable (NBLR), the national network vehicle of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), composed of the heads of more than 200 national black organizations. The Roundtable was founded by Rev. Fauntroy in 1977 when he was chair of the CBC Brain Trust on Black Voter Participation and Network Development.

Rev. Fauntroy's distinguished career of public service began in 1961 when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. appointed him Director of the Washington Bureau of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. From that post he performed many valuable services for the movement of the 1960's. He served as the DC Coordinator of the historic March on Washington in 1963; he was coordinator of the Selma to Montgomery March of 1965 and the Meridith Mississippi Freedom March of 1966. He was National Director of the 20th Anniversary March on Washington in 1983, and launched the Free South Africa Movement with his arrest at the South African Embassy in 1984.

His role in organizing these classic exercises of the First Amendment right of every American citizen to "peaceably assemble to petition the government" for changes in public policy, has resulted in many "strides towards freedom" here and around the world, including the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act.

Not only has Rev. Fauntroy's activism in the streets resulted in important changes in the nation's public policies but also in the neighborhood in which he was born and reared. In 1966, he founded and served as President of the Model Inner City Community Organization, a community planning and neighborhood development group in what is now known as the Shaw Urban Renewal Area. Under his leadership, the citizens of this neighborhood planned and have begun to implement the revitalization of housing, businesses, transportation and public facilities for the low and moderate-income families in what is the largest urban renewal area in the country.

The Honorable Rev. Fauntroy's career in the suites of public policy making began with his appointment by president Lyndon Baines Johnson as Vice Chairman of the White House Conference "To Fulfill These Rights" in 1966. In 1967, President Johnson appointed him the Vice Chair of the Council of the District of Columbia, and in 1971 he was elected to the first of the ten terms that he was to serve as the District Of Columbia's Delegate to Congress. From that post over a twenty-year period in the suites of the Congress, Rev. Fauntroy became a pivotal voice in shaping and implementing many significant changes in national public policy. As a member of the House District Committee, of course, he designed and engineered the passage of the D.C. Home Rule Act in 1973. In 1976, he introduced and the House of Representatives passed his resolution to establish a Select Committee to investigate the Assassinations of President John F Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr. Rev. Fauntroy chaired the Subcommittee on the Assassination of Dr. King.

In 1981, as chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, he launched the first Constructive Alternative Budget of the Caucus and produced the Black Leadership Family Plan For the Unity, Survival, and Progress of Black People. It remains the guide for the activities of the NBLR. Congressman Fauntroy also served as chair of the Congressional task Force on Haiti, a bipartisan group of members of the House and Senate that forged a new U.S. policy toward that struggling nation, and as a member of the select committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control.

Rev. Fauntroy's most challenging work in the suites of the Congress was as a member of the House Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs Committee. He served for six years as chair of the subcommittee on International Development, Finance, Trade and Monetary Policy, shaping U.S. participation in the multilateral development banks: The World Bank, The Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the African Development Bank.

In recognition of his distinguished record of humanitarian service, both Virginia Union University and Yale University have conferred upon him honorary Doctor of Law Degrees.

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