Black civil rights champion who helped desegregate UNC dies at 94

J. Kenneth Lee was one of the first black students to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His legacy has shaped the university, state and nation ever since.

Lee was one of four black students who joined a lawsuit in 1949 that would change history and lead to the desegregation of the UNC School of Law.

The university announced on July 30 that Lee had died at age 94. Lee died last week. His funeral was July 30 in Greensboro.

Lee and fellow plaintiffs were represented by Thurgood Marshall in the lawsuit. Marshall was the director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund at the time of the suit and would later become an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Read more: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article215773230.html