Vivian died at her home of natural causes in Atlanta on Friday.
"He was the sweetest man," Kira Vivian said. "He was so loving. What a loving father. He was the best father of my life."
Vivian participated in Freedom Rides and worked alongside Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
Vivian had a solid religious education and said he felt called to a life of ministry, according to the NVLP. With the help of his church, he enrolled in the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville in 1955.
That same year, he and other ministers founded the Nashville Christian Leadership Conference, an affiliate of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, NVLP said. The group helped organize the city's first sit-ins and civil rights march.
In 1965, Vivian became the director of national affiliates of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference when he led a group of people to register to vote in Selma, Alabama. As Sheriff Jim Clark blocked the group, Vivian fiercely said, "We will register to vote because as citizens of the United States we have the right to do so." Clark responded by beating Vivian until blood flowed from her chin in front of the rolling cameras. The images helped galvanize wider support for change.
Vivian also created a college preparation program to help "take care of children who have been kicked out of school simply because they are protesting racism."
Years later, the US Department of Education used its Vision program as a guide to create Upward Bound, which was designed to improve high school and college graduation rates for students in underserved communities. .
In the late 1970s, Vivian founded the National Anti-Klan Network, an anti-racist organization that focused on monitoring the Ku Klux Klan. Shortly after its inception, the name and leadership changed because "it was bigger than the Klan," Vivian said.
"We called it the Center for Democratic Renewal because all culture had to be renewed if it was to truly be democratic." Vivian said they viewed the Center for Democratic Renewal as "the political side" of what they did with the SCLC, which focused on the country's moral struggles during the civil rights movement.
President Barack Obama awarded Vivian the country's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 2013.
About his father, Kira Vivian said: "he was just a nice person and cared about people."
Vivian was born in Boonville, Missouri, July 30, 1924. He and his late wife, Octavia Geans Vivian, had six children.
CNN's Alta Spells contributed to this report.
