Adolph Ira "A. I." "B" Botnick (August 17, 1924 – October 5, 1995) was a Jewish American activist in the

civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...

. He sought to minimize violence in race relations, "often maneuvering quietly behind the scenes to try to defuse potential violence and thwart the Ku Klux Klan". He was a target of an assassination plot by Byron De La Beckwith, who had previously assassinated civil rights leader

Medgar Evers Medgar Wiley Evers (; July 2, 1925June 12, 1963) was an American civil rights activist and the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi, who was murdered by Byron De La Beckwith. Evers, a decorated U.S. Army combat veteran who had served i ...

. The assassination was prevented when De La Beckwith was arrested for transporting a bomb across state lines. Botnick was born and raised in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

, Louisiana. He attended

Gulf Coast Military Academy The Gulf Coast Military Academy (GCMA) was a military school in Mississippi. It was founded in 1912 by Colonel James Chappel Hardy in Gulfport, Mississippi. It ceased operation in 1976. After severe damage in Hurricane Katrina, a small part of th ...

and served in the army in World War II; his unit fought in the

Battle of the Bulge The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted from 16 December 1944 to 28 January 1945, towards the end of the war in ...

. Afterward, he graduated from

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 nea ...

. Botnick was recruited by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in 1961 and took a position in their Atlanta, Georgia office. In 1964 he became the ADL's regional director in New Orleans for the region of Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas. He held this position until his retirement in 1992. He died at the age of 71. In recognition of his work for the Anti-Defamation League, he is the namesake for the its annual A. I. Botnick Torch of Liberty Award Dinner.

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* 1924 births 1995 deaths American civil rights activists United States Army personnel of World War II People from New Orleans Anti-Defamation League members Activists from Louisiana United States Army soldiers {{NewOrleans-stub