Golden Frinks

Golden Asro Frinks (August 15, 1920 – July 19, 2004) was an American civil rights activist and a Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) field secretary who represented the New Bern, North Carolina SCLC chapter. He is best known as a principal civil rights organizer in North Carolina during the 1960s.
Frinks was also a United States Army veteran who fought in World War II and worked at the U.S. naval base in Norfolk, Virginia. After his military career, he began promoting equality for African Americans through organized demonstrations. Frinks’ involvement in the Civil Rights Movement brought early civil rights victories to North Carolina, and his willingness to engage in nonviolent, direct action served as a catalyst for civil rights movements in Edenton and nearby towns.
After becoming a field secretary of the SCLC, Frinks built a close relationship with Martin Luther King Jr. and often worked with the civil rights leader in organizing desegregation movements until King’s death in 1968. Frinks’ work as a field secretary and his direct actions against the Jim Crow Laws began a new era for the civil rights movement in North Carolina and the de-segregation of the South.