Civil rights activist dies at 79

SAVANNAH - Westley Wallace Law, a civil rights activist who spent 26 years as president of the Savannah branch of the NAACP, was found dead Monday at his home. <br> <br> Friends alerted authorities after efforts to reach the 79-year-old Law on Sunday were unsuccessful. Firefighters broke down the door and found his body. <br> <br> In high school, Law protested segregation at Savannah&#39;s Grayson Stadium and worked to get a black disc jockey on a local radio station. <br> <br> In 1960, congressional candidate G. Elliott Hagan made Law&#39;s job as a mail carrier a campaign issue. At the time, Law was leading an 18-month-long boycott of Broughton Street merchants in Savannah, and he was accused by Hagan of violating the Hatch Act by talking about money and votes while on government time. <br> <br> Hagan won the election, and on Sept. 15, 1961, Law was fired from the U.S. Post Office. After national NAACP leaders came to his defense, he was reinstated by a three-member appeal board. Postmaster General J. Edward Day reluctantly restored Law to his $5,300-a-year job. <br> <br> Law said that efforts to oust him from his job continued for years. He stayed at the post office until the 1990s. <br> <br> In his later years, Law became an unflagging activist in efforts to preserve Savannah&#39;s black history, including buildings in the historically black areas of the city.

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