BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — A Black Army veteran who helped peacefully desegregate the city library with a sit-in protest in 1963 has died, according to the library and an obituary published by his family.

Shelly Millender Jr. of Birmingham died on Saturday. He was 86.

Millender already was a veteran when he attended Miles College, a historically Black school where he was student government president and became active in the civil rights movement. He was among the students who staged a sit-in at the main downtown library on April 10, 1963, to demonstrate against a policy that banned Black people.

Library leaders agreed to end segregation afterward in what the library described as one of the few peaceful desegregation efforts in the city. In 2018, Millender served as a panelist during a discussion at the library about a book that documented the desegregation of public libraries in the South.

Millender spent decades selling cars and served as host of a radio show after retirement. Survivors include two sisters, three children, a lifelong companion and her son, the obituary said.