San Francisco, August 21 (RHC)-- Longtime U.S. civil rights activist Reverend George Houser has died. The white Methodist minister helped found the Congress of Racial Equality, alongside U.S. civil rights icons James Farmer and Bayard Rustin.

George Houser also helped organize the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation, in which eight African-American and eight white activists rode interstate buses through 15 cities throughout the South. The action prefigured the Freedom Rides of 1961, which galvanized the civil rights movement in the United States.

In recent years, Reverend Houser worked with IFCO/Pastors for Peace and traveled to Cuba with the Pastors for Peace caravan.

Earlier in life, Houser also served a year in federal prison for opposing the draft in World War II. He died in his home in California on Wednesday at the age of 99.