Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C. (1917–2015), known affectionately by the Notre Dame community as Fr. Ted, served as President of the University of Notre Dame from 1952 until 1987. A highly respected servant leader, Hesburgh served as a member of the United States Civil Rights Commission, beginning in 1957. Throughout the 1960s, he continued to advocate strongly for civil rights, speaking at a rally in Chicago in 1964 organized by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., an event that has been immortalized in an iconic photo of Hesburgh and King standing side by side, amid other activists, hands joined, singing “We Shall Overcome.”
