Walter Edward Fauntroy Jr. (born February 6, 1933) is an American pastor, civil rights activist, and politician who was the Washington, D.C. delegate to the United States House of Representatives from 1971 to 1991.

Walter grew up in the Shaw community in Northwest Washington, and attended the New Bethel Baptist Church just a few blocks from his home.

He graduated second in his class at Washington's all-black Dunbar High School in 1951, and the members of his church held fund-raising dinners to provide him with a college scholarship.

[4] During his stay at Virginia Union University, Fauntroy met the 22-year-old Martin Luther King Jr., himself an ordained Baptist minister.

Fauntroy joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and upon his return to Washington, D.C., became an influential lobbyist for civil rights in Congress.

Believing that religion was something more than a Sunday morning ritual, Fauntroy took part in civil rights demonstrations, sit-ins, and marches – both in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere.

At one time the budget for MICCO was well over $30 million, a community planning and neighborhood development group in Washington, D.C., that established and began to implement the Shaw Urban Renewal Project.

Fauntroy played a key role after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., meeting both with President Johnson and with activist Stokely Carmichael during the immediate aftermath.

In 1967, he was named vice-chairperson of the Washington City Council, a nine-member body appointed directly by the president of the United States.

Fauntroy sat on the city council for two years, resigning when his commitments as director of MICCO began to take all of his time.

Belying his previous ecumenicism, Fauntroy asked the United States Supreme Court to stop same-sex marriage from taking place in the District of Columbia in March 2010, pending a "vote by the people".

With the support of his fellow pastors in the city – and with appearances by his friend Coretta Scott King — he defeated two primary opponents who had both spent twice as much money as he did.

Having won the primary by a substantial margin, Fauntroy easily beat Republican John A. Nevius and other candidates, including future D.C. council members Julius Hobson of the D.C. Statehood Party and Douglas E. Moore, who ran as an independent.

Fauntroy therefore became influential with the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) as a liberal with an agenda that included the concerns of inner city residents, the poor, and minorities.

Using his considerable political clout, he oversaw legislation that provided for direct election of a mayor and a city council in Washington by 1973.

On Thanksgiving Eve in 1984, Fauntroy along with Randall Robinson and Mary Francis Berry launched the Free South Africa Movement which included their arrest for a sit in at the South African Embassy in Washington, D.C. During the 1972 Democratic presidential primaries, Fauntroy campaigned in the D.C. primary as a favorite son candidate[1] and won the largely uncontested event with 21,217 (71.78%) votes against 8,343 (28.22%) for unpledged delegates.

In 2005, along with fellow former African-American Democratic congressman, the Reverend Floyd Flake, he joined with U.S. Representative Walter Jones (R-NC) to support the Houses of Worship Freedom of Speech Restoration Act (H.R.

[15] In 2012, Fauntroy disappeared and presumably fled the United States after a bench warrant was issued for his arrest in conjunction with allegations he had written a fraudulent check for $55,000.

The city's human rights commission, knowing Fauntroy was against gay marriage, decided to withdraw from the event, which caused a firestorm of criticism.

[20][21] In 2009, Fauntroy, along with six other pastors from Maryland and Washington, D.C., filed suit in D.C. Superior Court attempting to force a referendum to keep the District from recognizing out-of-state same-sex marriages.

[25] He was released with the rest of the foreign nationals on August 25, 2011, and returned to Washington, where he took part in remembrances of the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

[26] In an interview with The Afro in early September 2011, Fauntroy claimed to have witnessed Danish and French special forces soldiers on the ground in Libya, beheading and maiming civilians and rebels alike and placing responsibility for the violence on the Libyans.