By Kevin Aldridge
The Cincinnati Enquirer

COLLEGE HILL - Edgar Donald Pillow devoted his life to helping African-Americans fight injustice.

Mr. Pillow, 78, was found dead on Nov. 25 in his home on Cedar Avenue in College Hill. Police have charged his 19-year-old step-grandson, Michael Meridy Jr., with murder.

Mr. Pillow, a retired Internal Revenue Service employee, was a guest editorial writer for the Cincinnati Herald and was syndicated in African-American newspapers across the country.

Mr. Pillow was born in Des Moines, Iowa, and earned a bachelor's degree in social psychology in 1953 from the University of Minnesota. He was a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity and served in World War II.

In Minnesota, he was active in the St. Paul Urban League. Mr. Pillow moved his family to Cincinnati in 1975. He was one of the founding members of the Cincinnati Black United Front. He was a member of New Jerusalem Baptist Church in Carthage.

"His whole life his message to the black community was one of education and self-reliance," said his son, Keith Pillow, 39, of Los Angeles. His first wife, Dorothy Marie, died in 1979. His second wife, Georgianna Grant, died in 1998.

Another son, Aswad Akhenaten (formerly Edgar Pillow Jr.), lives in Brainerd, Minn

Visitation is 11:30 a.m. and funeral at 12:30 p.m. Saturday at Thompson Hall Jordan Funeral Home, 2625 Gilbert Ave., Walnut Hills. Interment at Spring Grove Cemetery.

Memorials can be made by calling (323) 449-6829.

E-mail kaldridge@enquirer.com