Bankole Thompson to deliver tribute at Dr. William G. Anderson funeral

Journalist and civil rights commentator Bankole Thompson will speak at the Aug. 25 funeral for Dr. William G. Anderson at Empowerment Church in Southfield, Michigan. Anderson, the former Albany Movement president and longtime physician, died Aug. 16 at 98 after a life that bridged the Civil Rights Movement and a trailblazing medical career.

Why it matters: - Dr. William G. Anderson was one of the last direct links to the generation that fought Jim Crow alongside Martin Luther King Jr. - Thompson’s tribute connects a contemporary Black journalist to a historic civil rights legacy that still shapes debates over democracy, race and equality. - Anderson’s funeral in suburban Detroit will serve as a public moment to recognize both his movement work and his influence in medicine and education.

What happened: - Bankole Thompson has been invited by Anderson’s family to deliver a tribute at Anderson’s funeral on Tuesday, Aug. 25, at 11 a.m. at Empowerment Church in Southfield, Michigan. - Anderson died Sunday, Aug. 16, at age 98. - Thompson described the invitation as personally and historically fitting because he spent years documenting Anderson’s reflections.

The details: - Anderson was a founder and president of the Albany Movement in Georgia. - Anderson worked with King, Ralph Abernathy and other civil rights leaders against segregation in Albany. - The Albany campaign helped shape later strategies for nonviolent resistance, organizing and confronting entrenched segregation across the South. - Anderson was an osteopathic physician, surgeon, educator and hospital administrator. - Anderson was a founding faculty member of the Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine. - Anderson became the first African American president of the American Osteopathic Association. - Anderson also led the Wayne County Osteopathic Medical Association and the Michigan Osteopathic Association. - Michigan State University named its civil rights lecture series, Slavery to Freedom: An American Odyssey, after Anderson. - The lecture series has featured civil rights figures including John Lewis and Harry Belafonte. - Anderson personally called Thompson in 2020 and asked him to be a featured speaker for the lecture series. - Thompson wrote about Anderson’s life in a Detroit News column last year titled “William G. Anderson’s long walk to freedom.” - Thompson later became the first journalist in American history to serve on the National Board of Directors of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. - Thompson was nominated to the SCLC board in 2023 by the late Rev. Dr. Bernard LaFayette Jr. - Thompson received the Let Freedom Ring Journalism Award from the late Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. in January 2018. - Thompson also received the Frederick Douglass Award in 2014. - The University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library established The Bankole Thompson Papers in 2015. - Thompson’s 2023 book, Fiery Conscience, is documented as a reference resource in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. - Thompson founded The PuLSE Institute and hosts the Bankole’s Nation podcast. - Thompson’s latest book, HOPE: On The Mountain Of Fear, includes a foreword by Sister Simone Campbell. - Thompson is finishing Bankole Thompson’s 12 Moral Questions: Frederick Douglass and the Soul of America at 250. - Former federal chief judge Gerald E. Rosen recently endorsed portions of that forthcoming book.

Between the lines: - The family’s choice of Thompson reflects how closely his career has overlapped with the people and institutions that carried the King-era movement forward. - Thompson’s remarks framed Anderson’s death as part of a larger loss of living memory from the Civil Rights Movement. - The tribute also highlights how civil rights history now passes through journalists, archives and public institutions as much as through surviving movement leaders.

What’s next: - Thompson will join Anderson’s family, friends, colleagues and members of the community at the Aug. 25 service. - The funeral is expected to function as both a memorial and a civic reflection on the unfinished work of the movement Anderson helped build. - Thompson said the deeper question raised by Anderson’s death is whether the current generation has the courage to continue that work.

The bottom line: - Anderson’s funeral will honor a physician, educator and movement leader whose life shaped both civil rights history and Black advancement in medicine.