MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) – Civic leader and businessman Fred L. Davis has died in Memphis, Tennessee.

Davis supported the 1968 sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis and marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He was 86. A media representative for the Davis family said he died Tuesday at his home in Memphis. Davis had been ill for several months.

Davis was elected to the Memphis City Council in 1967.

He supported Memphis sanitation workers who went on strike in 1968 to protest dangerous working conditions and low pay. Davis joined King on a march down Beale Street that turned violent in March 1968.