 Taylor was a close friend and mentor to Martin Luther King Jr. and played a prominent role in the religious leadership of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.In 1958, Robert F. Wagner, Jr., Mayor of New York City, named Taylor to the New York City Board of Education, the second black member in its history.In a three-year tenure, he attacked segregation in city schools and argued that federal aid should be denied to private schools while public schools were desperate for funds.