BYRD, Daniel Ellis, civil-rights leader, community activist. Born, Marvell, Phillips County, Ark., January 31, 1910; son of Fellow Emerson Byrd and Malinda Kendall. Religion: United Methodist. Education: public elementary and secondary schools of Gary, Ind.; attended Crane Junior College (now Roosevelt University) and La Salle School of Law, both Chicago, Ill. Resident of Marvell, Ark., 1910-1912; Gary, Ind., 1912-1929; Chicago, 1929-1934; New Orleans, 1934-1984. Married, 1937, Mildred Cage of New Orleans, daughter of Harry Cage and Johnnie Covington of Canton, Miss. One daughter, Carol-da Mille. Original member of Chicago (later Harlem) Globetrotters; insurance agent for Louisiana and Good Citizens Insurance companies; Prince Hall Masonic Lodge; executive secretary, New Orleans Branch NAACP, 1941-1942; executive secretary, Louisiana State Conference, NAACP, 1943-1948; field secretary for Southern States, NAACP, and later NAACP Legal Defense Fund, 1948-1978. President, New Orleans NAACP, 1941-1942; founding president, Louisiana State Conference, NAACP. Along with attorneys A. P. Tureaud and Thurgood Marshall won teacher salary equalization cases in more than a dozen parishes in Louisiana; recruited plaintiffs in school desegregation, public parks and playground, voter registration cases; organized selective buying campaign in 1947, to secure right for Negro women to try on hats and other garments before purchase; investigated Minden blow torch lynching in 1947, Louisiana's last known lynching, recruited New Orleans's first successful black police applicants; organized Louisiana Progressive Voters League, mentor of Medgar Evers, slain Mississippi civil rights leader, and James Meredith, first black student admitted to University of Mississippi. Died, March 18, 1984; interred St. Mary Cemetery, New Orleans. R.C. Sources: Daniel E. Byrd Papers, Amistad Research Center (New Orleans); New Orleans Branch NAACP Papers, Earl K. Long Library archives (University of New Orleans, New Orleans).