Reverend Curtis Harris, right, with Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Photo Credit: Petersburg Progress-Index

Virginia civil rights legend Rev. Curtis Harris, Sr. will be Senator Warner’s guest at tonight’s State of the Union address from the President. 

Rev. Harris, 87, was a friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  He “spent much of the 1960s and '70s picketing, marching, confronting Ku Klux Klansmen, filing lawsuits and occasionally getting tossed in jail while fighting for equality,” according to the Richmond Times Dispatch. 

Rev. Harris also has served the City of Hopewell in public office for more than 25 years: he was elected as Hopewell’s first African-American mayor in 1998, and he has served on the City Council since 1986. 

"But for folks like Curtis Harris, there would never have been a President Barack Obama," Senator Warner said.