(Providence, RI)--A civil rights activist in Rhode Island has died.Michael Van Leesten was 80 years old when he passed away on Friday.Van Leesten worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and went to Choctaw County, Alabama in the 1960s to participate in a significant voter registration initiative.Van Leesten had been a star player on the Rhode Island College basketball team and later served as the chairman of the Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corporation.