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The number 42 carries special meaning in the nation's civil-rights lore. It was, after all, Jackie Robinson's uniform number when he broke Major League Baseball's color barrier in 1947.

On Sunday, the number marked a milestone in Utah's racial history as its own civil-rights legend, the Rev. France Davis, celebrated 42 years at Calvary Baptist Church.

The 69-year-old Davis, who marched from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., to push for voting rights in the 1960s and met the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., has been a leading voice for justice, equality and other causes since his arrival in Utah in the early 1970s.

Sunday was a day for congregants at the historic Salt Lake City church to thank their longtime pastor, a soft-spoken man whose moral clarity resounds across the civic spectrum and whose slight stature belies his giant influence.

— David Noyce