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Seattle loses civil rights leader Reverend Dr. Samuel B. McKinney

Seattle civil rights leader, Reverend Sam McKinney, died April 7, 2018. @KUOWRoss shares this remembrance: pic.twitter.com/d9put8NY5z — KUOW Public Radio (@KUOW) April 10, 2018

Seattle lost a civil rights icon this weekend.

The Reverend Dr. Samuel B. McKinney died Saturday. He was 91. 

KUOW's Marcie Sillman spoke with arts advocate and former Seattle Arts Commission chair, Vivian Phillips, who knew McKinney personally about his life and work. 

Dr. McKinney was pastor at Seattle's Mount Zion Baptist Church for 43 years. 

During that time the church’s membership tripled making it the largest black congregation in the state.   

He was also a founder of the first black-owned bank in Seattle, the first black president of the Church Council of Greater Seattle, and an original member of the Seattle Human Rights Commission that successfully advocated for the city's first fair-housing act.