Civil Rights leader Mathew Little dies at 92

Twin Cities civil rights leader Matthew Little died yesterday at the age of 92.

Little served as president of the Minnesota chapter of the NAACP for many years before retiring in 1993. Thirty years earlier he led the Minnesota delegation in the 1963 March on Washington and heard Martin Luther King Jr. make his historic "I Have a Dream" speech.

Little grew up in Washington, D.C. and moved to Minneapolis in 1948. He was active in the effort to desegregate the Minneapolis public schools. In a statement, DFL party chair Ken Martin said Little "worked alongside the greats in our party like Hubert Humphrey, Orville Freeman and Walter Mondale in the fight for equality, human rights and economic justice."

In 2008, as Little watched Barack Obama win the presidency with a group of African-American elders, he said, "I almost feel like my life is completed."

"There are no words to describe this feeling," Little said. "I waited all of my life, and now I've seen it happen in my lifetime. I never thought I would possibly see this or feel this way. It's terrific."