Harris Wofford, 92; former U.S. senator, civil rights activist

Harris Wofford, a Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, university president and lifelong crusader for civil rights who made a crucial contribution to John F. Kennedy’s slender victory in the 1960 presidential contest, died Jan. 21 at a hospital in Washington. He was 92.

The cause was complications from a fall, said his son, Daniel Wofford.

The scion of a wealthy business family, Wofford attracted national media attention as a teenager during World War II. He helped launch the Student Federalists group, an organization that sought to unite the world’s democracies in a battle against fascism and to keep the postwar peace.

Wofford became one of the first white students to graduate from the historically black Howard University law school in Washington. He was an early supporter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and marched alongside him in the civil and voting rights flashpoint of Selma, Alabama. Robert F. Kennedy, the president’s brother who served as U.S. attorney general, once referred to Wofford as a “slight madman” in his zeal for advancing civil rights.

Wofford went on to a wide-ranging career, serving as John F. Kennedy’s special assistant for civil rights, helping Kennedy in-law Sargent Shriver launch the Peace Corps and heading two colleges, including Bryn Mawr women’s college in Pennsylvania.

In 1991, he defeated a giant of Pennsylvania politics – former Republican Gov. and U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh – to become the state’s first Democratic senator in more than 20 years.

In Philadelphia in 2008, he introduced then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., before the stirring “A More Perfect Union” speech on race relations during the presidential race that would propel Obama to the White House.