William “Bill” McGee elected as new SCLC President

The Richmond Area Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which represents Central Virginia as  a nationally chartered member of the national SCLC, convened to hold an election for President and other officers. William F. McGee, a retired RPS administrator and an adjunct professor at Virginia State University, was unanimously elected President of the organization. Rev. Rodney L. Hunter, the pastor of Wesley Memorial Methodist Church and past President, will serve as Vice-President of the Richmond chapter. SCLC was founded in 1957 by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and several other ministers as a result of the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott.

McGee is a graduate of Virginia State College and Norfolk State University. Born in Richmond and raised in Petersburg, he was influenced as a child by Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker. With his mother, a college professor, McGee moved to Atlanta in the early ‘60s. There he attended school      with Yolanda King and Martin King III, graduated from the same high school as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and taught at Morehouse College, the alma mater of Dr. King. He was also mentored by Rev. Samuel L. Williams, the Morehouse professor who taught Dr. King philosophy. Well known as an award-winning  musician and teacher, and as a voting member of the Recording Academy, Bill McGee has been proactive in social justice Issues and political advocacy for many years. As SCLC President, he is committed to growing the youth membership exponentially, empowering and inspiring young people to get involved in social justice advocacy and developing voter education and voter registration programs. SCLC’s work with organized labor and workers’ rights organizations in Central Virginia will  also continue.