Rev. Edwin King, a native white southerner, worked with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in its voter registration and citizenship education drives in the 1960s. An ordained United Methodist minister, King was known as a creative, and sometimes dramatic, organizer of the campaign to integrate churches in Jackson, Mississippi. He was also a candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi in 1964 on the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party ticket. Currently, King is an associate professor in the School of Health Professions at the University of Mississippi.