McKissick, Floyd B.

McKissick, Floyd B. (1922–  ) civil rights leader, lawyer, business executive; born in Asheville, N.C. After receiving a bachelor's degree at North Carolina Central University, with the legal help of Thurgood Marshall he entered the University of North Carolina Law School at Chapel Hill and became its first black recipient of a law degree (1951). He practiced law in Durham, N.C., (1952–66), and specialized in hundreds of civil rights cases brought before the courts in the 1960s. He was legal counsel for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) before becoming CORE's national chairman (1966). He left CORE (1968) to launch Floyd B. McKissick Enterprises, Inc.—a corporation involved in organizing and financing businesses. An arm of that company, Warren Regional Planning Corp., was formed to develop Soul City in North Carolina. He was author of Three-fifths of a Man (1968).