Virginia State Unit of SCLC from 1963–1998, and was elected the National SCLC Vice President in 2005. In 1968, Harris was appointed to the Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. In 1987, he led a march against discrimination in Colonial Heights, Virginia. He filed a racial discrimination complaint, in 1996, against the Fort Lee Army Base. In 1998 he became Hopewell's first black mayor. In 2007, Harris demonstrated against a proposed ethanol plant being built in Hopewell with support from the national SCLC. Church and political work Harris was employed as a janitor at Allied Chemical and Dye Company when he was ordained a Baptist minister in 1959. First Baptist Church, Bermuda Hundred in Chester, Virginia was where he first served as a pastor and remained there until 1969. In 1961, he was called to pastor at both Union Baptist Church in Hopewell and Gilfield Baptist Church in Ivor, Virginia. Harris retired from Gilfield in 1994, and on December 16, 2007, he delivered his final sermon at Union Baptist after a 46-year pastorship. Harris was also president of the Hopewell Ministerial Association, Moderator/Executive Director of Bethany Baptist Association and Allied Bodies, and affiliated with Lott Carey Foreign Mission. As early as 1964, Harris ran for a seat on the Hopewell City Council. After seven attempts to be elected, he and many other like-minded residents moved the city of Hopewell to replace its longstanding at-large system with a ward system in 1983. Harris was finally elected to the Hopewell City Council (Ward 2) in 1986; in 1994 he was elected vice mayor; and in 1998, Harris was sworn in as the first African-American mayor of Hopewell. After 26 years of service to the city as well as to his constituents in Ward 2, Harris retired from his seat on the Hopewell City Council on March 1, 2012. On February 11, 2014, the Hopewell City Council voted to rename Terminal Street, "Rev C W Harris Street." For 57 years, Curtis and Ruth Harris lived at 209 Terminal Street, the street in Hopewell which now bears his name. The council also voted to rename Booker Street (which intersects Rev. C. W. Harris Street), "Ruth Harris Way" in honor of Harris' late wife, Dr. Ruth J. Harris. The Street Sign Ceremony, hosted by the Hopewell City Council, was held at Union Baptist Church on June 15, 2014, to pay tribute