Rick Scott Orders Flags Lowered for Former Fort Myers Mayor Corbin

Gov. Rick Scott has ordered flags lowered to half-staff at the City Hall of Fort Myers on Saturday for Oscar M. Corbin Jr., the former mayor of Fort Myers. Corbin, 94, died May 8.

Corbin served as mayor from 1967-'76.The city hall has been named after him.

Corbin also fought for civil rights of all residents during the 1960s and 1970s -- a time when it was unpopular to do so, according to the Fort Myers News-Press.

When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, Corbin joined with black leaders to calm the community. He held hands with Rev. Isadore Edwards, then president of the Lee County Chapter of the NAACP, and sang We Shall Overcome at the downtown Exhibition Hall four days after Kings death. Exhibition Hall had been closed to blacks until that day.