Rev. Cordell Tindall (C.T.) Vivian, Medal of Freedom recipient, Civil Rights leader, and a native of the Boonslick, C. T. Vivian, will be honored in Boonville on Saturday, August 3. A bust will be unveiled in the Morgan Street Statue Park with a ceremony to recognize him at 9 a.m. A reception will follow at the Methodist Church.

According to the Boonslick Historical Society, C. T. Vivian was an American minister, author, and close friend and lieutenant of Martin Luther King Jr. and civil rights leader Georgia Congressman John Lewis. He founded the C. T. Vivian Leadership Institute Inc. and was active in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Vivian told the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of African American History in 2011 that he was born in rural Howard County on July 30, 1924. At the time the Depression struck, his family was buying three farms but lost everything a short time later and moved across the Missouri River to a small house in Boonville.

The family later moved to Macomb, Illinois, because they wanted to leave segregated society. It was also the town in which his mother was born. They chose Macomb for its educational opportunities, which included a university. There he attended Lincoln Grade School and Edison Junior High School. He graduated from Macomb High School in 1942 and attended Western Illinois University in Macomb, where he worked as the sports editor for the school newspaper. 

His first professional job was as recreation director for the Carver Community Center in Peoria, Illinois. There, Vivian participated in his first sit-in demonstrations, which successfully integrated Barton’s Cafeteria in 1947.

In 1952, C.T. married Octavia Geans, who was also instrumental in the Civil Rights movement. She passed away in February 2011. The couple was married for 58 years and produced six children and 14 grandchildren. 

According to her obituary, in 1970, Octavia authored and published Coretta, the first biography of Coretta Scott King. She revised and re-published a memorial edition of Coretta upon Mrs. King’s death in 2006.

In 2013, Rev. C.T. Vivian received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama. In March 2007, then-Senator Obama, speaking at Selma’s Brown Chapel on the anniversary of the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches, recognized Vivian in his opening remarks in the words of Martin L. King Jr. as “the greatest preacher to ever live.”

According to his obituary, Vivian helped found the Nashville Christian Leadership Conference and helped organize the first sit-ins in Nashville in 1960 and the first civil rights march in 1961. In 1961, Vivian participated in Freedom Rides. He worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr. as the national director of affiliates for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. During the summer following the Selma Voting Rights Movement, Vivian conceived and directed an educational program, Vision, and put 702 Alabama students in college with scholarships (this program later became Upward Bound). His 1970 Black Power and the American Myth was the first book on the Civil Rights Movement by a member of Martin Luther King’s staff. 

C. T. Vivian died from natural causes in Atlanta on July 17, 2020, two weeks before his 96th birthday. He was buried at Westview Cemetery in Atlanta.

Much of the information contained in this article came from Harold Kerr’s excellent piece, “C. T. VIVIAN: Civil Rights Leader Native to Boonslick Region,” published in the Spring 2021 Boone’s Lick Heritage Quarterly.