 He worked with Thurgood Marshall and developed a friendship with Martin Luther King during the American civil rights movement, and has been cited as a mentor by the current leader of the NAACP in Oklahoma, Miller Newman, and his nephew, former congressman, J. C. Watts.Wade Alexander Watts was born 23 September 1919, in Kiamichi, Oklahoma, to Charlie Alexander Watts and Mittie Harris on the hillside of the Kiamichi Mountains.The family moved to Canada, lived there 5 years, and then moved back to Oklahoma and settled in Eufaula.