Carlos Zervigon, ardent civil rights activist, dies at 71
December 16, 2010



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Carlos Zervigon, an active participant in the local civil rights movement who traveled the world trying to
improve people's lives, died Sunday at Ochsner Health Center of complications of pulmonary fibrosis. He was
71.

"He just cared deeply about other people," said Kathryn Zervigon, his wife. "Any kind of work he was doing,
he wanted to be in a position where he was making it better for the people he was working with."

A native New Orleanian, Mr. Zervigon likely started being concerned about inequalities as a child, when he
visited Mexican relatives who had settled in Texas and saw how they were treated, his wife said.

At Tulane University, where Mr. Zervigon earned a degree in political science, he started becoming active in
the Congress of Racial Equality, which was better known as CORE.

While he attended demonstrations, such as lunch-counter sit-ins, he didn't actually sit at any counters
because that could have jeopardized his job as a public school teacher, Kathryn Zervigon said. "He was the
photographer."

His commitment led him to move to Chicago in 1966 to join the Ecumenical Institute (now the Institute of
Cultural Affairs in the U.S.A.), a private, nonprofit, nondenominational organization that combines theology
and community work.

Work in that organization took him and his family to such far-flung destinations as the Philippines,
Singapore and the jungles of Venezuela until 1977, when he, his wife and their son, Mario, settled in New
Orleans.

Mr. Zervigon worked in commercial real estate. In 1990, he and his wife formed Zervigon International Ltd.,
which provides management, consulting services and arranges meetings for local, national and international
companies.

In addition to his work, Mr. Zervigon was active in the Greater New Orleans Federation of Churches. Because
Spanish was his first language, he was a translator on Trinity Episcopal Church's medical missions to
Honduras, Mario Zervigon said.

He rarely turned anyone down. Once, when a nonprofit organization's representative asked about hiring his
company, his wife recalled that this was her answer: "I'll agree to it if you promise not to ask him to be
on the board."

A member of Rotary International, Mr. Zervigon received the Paul Harris Fellow Award for his service to the
organization.

Mr. Zervigon was a member of St. Martin's Episcopal School's Class of 1956. In 2004, the school gave him the
Martin de Tours Award, its highest honor for an alumnus.

In addition to his wife and son Mario, survivors include another son, Marcos Zervigon; a daughter, Celia
Zervigon Blum; a brother, Luis Zervigon of Austin, Texas; a sister, Anita Zervigon Hakes of Atlanta; and
seven grandchildren.

A funeral will be held Friday, on the Zervigons' 43rd anniversary, at 2 p.m. at St. George's Episcopal
Church, 4600 St. Charles Ave.