James Haughton, a civil rights advocate who aggressively challenged racial barriers to hiring at construction sites in the 1960s and ’70s and promoted programs to train black and Hispanic apprentices in the building trades, died on April 17 in Manhattan. He was 86.

The cause was a chronic urinary tract infection, his partner, Ronnie Asbell, said.

Mr. Haughton, a construction worker’s son, was best known for breaking with more moderate proponents of equal opportunity in hiring and housing to form what became known in 1969 as Fight Back, a group based in Harlem.

Fight Back documented discrimination; staged boycotts, protests and sit-down strikes; and filed lawsuits (sometimes with Columbia University’s Center on Social Welfare Policy and Law) against contractors and unions that were closed to newcomers, a consequence, the group said, of nepotism and racism.

Fight Back also provided counseling and placement services when jobs became available.

In 1972, racial minorities made up more than a third of New York City’s population but accounted for only about 2 percent of union members in skilled construction jobs. Today, minorities make up about two-thirds of the city’s population and about half the membership of unions affiliated with the Building and Construction Trades Council, the organization says.