Abner Darby, champion of racial equality in Lynn

From left, Abner Darby, Victor Perez, and Calvin Young toured Union Street in Lynn. Mr. Darby's efforts in the city led to the hiring of minorities as firefighters and on the police force. (Wendy Maeda/Globe Staff/File 1997)

Vision sharpened by the segregation of his Texas youth, Abner Darby moved to Lynn decades ago and was surprised by what he saw.

"He helped open all our eyes to what we accepted as the norm," said Virginia Barton, who first met Mr. Darby when they lived a few houses apart in Lynn. "Here we were, a healthy community, well-rounded, all races, creeds, and colors - Lynn was known for that. But we stayed in certain places and didn't go to others. Mr. Darby broke that down. He had lived through what I called the real segregation. We had accepted it, and we learned not to because of Mr. Darby."

A founder of the Community Minority Cultural Center in Lynn and for many years the president of the North Shore and New England regional NAACP organizations, Mr. Darby used the pulpit of civic activism to fight racial injustice and open doors in the workplace to African-Americans and other minorities who lived in his North Shore city.

Mr. Darby, who once was honored as a "Laudable Lynner" and went on to gather plaudits from small groups on up to the State House, died of cancer on June 26 in the Kaplan Family Hospice House in Danvers. He was 75 and had lived in Lynn.

Of Martin Luther King Day, he often said: "It's not a black holiday. It is a holiday for a great American."

And of school lessons that often excluded contributions by those neither white nor wealthy, Mr. Darby offered an antidote.

"We are a resource center for African-American materials," he told the Globe in 1994, speaking of the Community Minority Cultural Center he helped found in 1971. "We have to teach our youth about the past. It's hard for them to get enough of it out of the geography books and American history books. It was the page that was left out of history books."

His own history began in Austin, Texas, where he "grew up in a very humble home and was very much impacted by segregation and the disparities he saw," said his daughter Cathy, of Lynn. "I think that coming from that background, he made up his mind very, very early that if he got the opportunity to leave Texas, he would, and he would never go back."

Stationed in Massachusetts while serving in the Army, he met and married Mary Patricia Gaines and settled in Lynn after his Army duty ended.

A deft mechanic, he worked for an Oldsmobile dealership and later owned and operated two service stations in Lynn. By the early 1960s, hewas president of the North Shore branch of the NAACP and later held the same position for the New England Area Conference of Branches for the NAACP from the late 1970s to the late 1980s.

"He taught us that you could never accept poor treatment from other people, and if you witnessed it yourself, you had to do something to help other people as well," his daughter said.

At the NAACP's 48th annual New England Regional Conference in Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard, Mr. Darby made it clear that while much had been accomplished, much remained.

"We have a long way to go," he said in a Globe article about the 1986 meeting. "We moved from the rear of the bus to driving the bus. We want to own the bus. The goals are the same as always: a fair share of the economic development in the United States. We want equality and justice under the law for everyone regardless of race, creed, or color."

In Lynn, Mr. Darby's efforts led to the city hiring minorities as firefighters and diversifying the ranks of the police force, said Barton, herself a longtime community activist who worked with him on many causes.

"He was a man with a vision and he was never afraid to speak to anybody," she said. "It could be the guy walking on the streets, looking for a job. It could be the mayor, businesses, bankers. He had his say, always in a way that wasn't hurtful. But he spoke the truth."

Through the Community Minority Cultural Center, which he served as executive director for a quarter-century, Mr. Darby welcomed Lynn residents of different races and sought to make them more welcome as workers in the city's businesses.

"We aim to bridge the gap between the minority and the majority in the city," he told the Globe in October 1993.

To brighten a blighted area of the city, the center moved to Union Street. One June day in 1997, Mr. Darby strolled down the street with Calvin Young, head of a community development nonprofit, and Victor Perez from the Lynn Chamber of Commerce.

"We have to revitalize the downtown area and bring Lynn back alive," Mr. Darby told the Globe. "We're doing our part as a diverse group."

A few months later, as part of a weeks-long grand opening for the center's new home in the former Empire department store, he joined Young and others in pushing for new economic opportunities for the city's minorities.

"We're going to map out our own destiny," he told the Globe in September 1997. "We're going to be more aggressive about opening doors for ourselves that were never open before."

Mr. Darby's marriage to Mary Patricia Darby of Lynn ended in divorce, his daughter said, but he and his former wife "remained the best of friends."

Barton, who worked alongside Mr. Darby for years, said her friend "was a great big man, but he didn't use that to intimidate people. It was what he said and the way he said it. He was never afraid to talk out. He would say, 'This is your God-given right.' "

In addition to his daughter Cathy, Mr. Darby leaves another daughter, Becky, of Beverly; a son, Steven, of Orlando, Fla.; and a brother, Paul, of Austin, Texas.

Services have been held.