‘Pants on the Ground' singer a civil rights veteran

Platt, who turned 63 a couple of months after last year's Idol audition,  calls himself a "four-star general in the civil rights movement." In fact, he had his feet on the ground in the '60s, when he took part in the Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march.

Platt told the AJC in 2008 that he was shot in the eye as a child and has been attacked by police dogs and suffered beatings in past civil rights efforts.

Platt, who marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, talked about his memories during a panel discussion at the Roswell Public Library.

Four years ago, Platt made the news during former Mayor Bill Campbell's federal corruption trial.

U.S. marshals at the Russell Federal Courthouse in downtown Atlanta confiscated drawings that Platt had done in the courtroom, citing issues of "inappropriateness."

In his ink-on-paper drawings, Platt depicted Campbell, his defense team, the judge and jurors as winged angels. Prosecution witnesses were shown with horns.

"God lets me see people as they are," Platt told the AJC at the time.

According to the AJC account of the incident, "after his drawings were taken, an agitated Platt stood in the hallway, shaking and near tears. Witnessing the scene, Campbell placed his hand on Platt's shoulder and told the marshal, ‘This man marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.' U.S. District Judge Richard Story told the marshals to return Platt's drawings."