Chevy Chase, Md. – Lloyd Davis, who worked with Martin Luther King’s widow to build Atlanta’s King Center and establish the holiday honoring the civil- rights leader, has died. He was 79 and died of cancer Monday, his family said.
A longtime federal housing official, he came to the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change around 1980 as executive vice president and chief operating officer, working alongside Coretta Scott King to maintain her husband’s legacy.
Later, he was executive director of the federal King Holiday Commission.
Davis helped Coretta Scott King plan the building of the center and helped her to get Congress to establish the King National Historic Site.
In 1983, after President Reagan established the King federal holiday, Davis became executive director of the King Holiday Commission to promote, oversee and raise money for the observance.
It was officially celebrated for the first time at the federal level Jan. 20, 1986. As the commission’s executive director, Davis worked to get the holiday legally observed in all 50 states.
Before coming to the King Center, Davis worked for the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, helping press for fair housing and minority-business development, his family said.
Davis was a native of Chicago.
