[6] As a result of the incident, McKissick resolved to become a lawyer, and shortly thereafter joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

[8] After enrolling at Morehouse, McKissick joined the U.S. Army and during World War II he served in the European Theater as a sergeant.

Under the leadership of McKissick, twenty high school NAACP members acted in regular pickets outside of the Royal Ice Cream Parlor.

[14] He handled a variety of cases, including property and insurance disputes and criminal law, but focused on civil rights litigation.

[14] As a lawyer, McKissick's most publicized efforts involved a segregated black local in the Tobacco Workers International, an AFL-CIO member.

"Carey helped McKissick and students organize the demonstrations that broke out on February 8 in Durham, and in the course of the next few weeks the two men travelled over the state setting up non-violent workshops."

[16][17] CORE executive director James Farmer was under arrest at the time of the 1963 civil rights March on Washington for participating in protests in Louisiana, so McKissick attended the demonstration on his behalf.

"[19] He also participated in a meeting between national civil rights leaders and President John F. Kennedy that day on Farmer's behalf.

In 1966, James Meredith challenged America's social system of poverty, racial segregation, and white supremacy by vowing to walk alone from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi.

Along with Martin Luther King Jr. and Stokely Carmichael, McKissick assisted in leading a group of demonstrators the remaining 194 miles to Jackson, Mississippi.

Local officials objected to their attempt to camp at the school, and dozens of state police officers were dispatched to confront the crowd.

[25] Following the incident, McKissick became a vocal supporter of black power, declaring that nonviolence had "outlived its usefulness" and that the civil rights movement was "dead".

[27] McKissick and Roy Innis, who at that time was the head of the Harlem chapter of CORE, appeared to be close allies, but there were underlying tensions.

"[30] In 1969, he published a book, 3/5ths of a man,[31] which urged white people to accept political equality with minorities at the threat of violent revolution.

[37] McKissick launched a plan to build a new community, Soul City, in Warren County, North Carolina, on 500 acres of farmland.

The venture received a $14 million bond issue guarantee from the Department of Housing and Urban Development through the New Communities Act of 1970 and a loan of $500,000 from the First Pennsylvania Bank.

With this funding, McKissick built a state-of-the art water system, a health care clinic, and a massive steel-and-glass factory named Soultech I.

Less than a year after being appointed, while also working as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Soul City, McKissick died of lung cancer at the age 69 on April 28, 1991.

He was survived by his wife, the former Evelyn Williams, whom he married in 1942; a son, Floyd McKissick, Jr; and three daughters, Joycelyn, Andree, and Charmaine.