Local officials and community activists joined to honor the life of civil rights leader Roscoe Nix Thursday.
The 90-year-old Nix died Jan. 4 of aspiration pneumonia in Riverdale, Ga. His funeral was held Thursday at Church of the Redeemer in Northeast D.C., followed by a burial at Parklawn Memorial Park in Rockville.
A longtime Silver Spring resident, Nix was survived by wife Emma Nix; children Veretta Nix and Susan Webster; grandchildren Briana Williams, Tristian Webster and Marcus Boy; and siblings Anita Jackson, Crispus Nix, Comer Nix and Pettis Nix.
The members of the Montgomery County Council canceled their annual retreat to attend the funeral. Many council members recalled Nix’s efforts to bring civil rights to Montgomery County.
Nix worked locally with the Board of Education, who named Silver Spring’s Roscoe Nix Elementary School for him, and with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, noted Council President Roger Berliner, D-Bethesda.
“Whenever Montgomery County needed a push to do justice, Roscoe Nix provided it,” said Councilman Phil Andrews, D-Gaithersburg/Rockville.
