When Martin Luther King was at the home of Charles Lunsford

When Martin Luther King was at the home of Charles Lunsford
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Martin Luther King during his 1958 visit to Rochester. Dr. Lunsford is to his left, kneeling.

• January 18, 2015

The man who took the picture is the only one still living.

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King speaking at the Rochester City Club, January 1958

On January 7th, 1958, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. visited Rochester to speak at the Rochester City Club and the Colgate Divinity School. That evening he was invited to a private reception at the home of Dr. Charles T. Lunsford, Rochester’s first known licensed African-American physician. Accompanying King was Rochester Police Officer Charles Price who served as his bodyguard. Ten years earlier Price had become the first African-American police officer in the RPD.

Recently, I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Price in his Henrietta home.  Price, now in his 90′s, greeted me with vigor — actually in his Buffalo Soldier uniform on his way to, yes, Buffalo for a reenactment.  There Price showed me a copy of the original photograph which he had taken (the negative, unfortunately, lost).

Price explained that Lunsford had invited the most prominent members of the Rochester black middle class for a reception following King’s talk.  One by one he recalled the participants, all of whom are gone, as would be King only ten years later.

I asked Price how he thought race relations had changed since 1958 when King inspired Rochester and the nation. Some things are better, he brightened. Then, more halting, some things are worse.

He’s right, of course.  Since 1958 Rochester has seen African-American Mayors, Police Chiefs, School Principals and Superintendents. And School # 19 is named for Dr. Lunsford. And people like Price are more than welcome in towns like Henrietta.

On the reverse, segregated schools.  And perpetual urban poverty.

blogedorial

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

UPDATE: SEE On Dr. Charles T. Lunsford and the house where he entertained Martin Luther King Jr.

SEE ALSO

On Dr. Charles T. Lunsford and the house where he entertained Martin Luther King Jr.

Revisiting Rochester black history

About The Author

dkramer3@naz.edu

Welcome to Talker of the Town! My name is David Kramer. I have a Ph.D in English and teach at Keuka College. I am a former and still active Fellow at the Nazareth College Center for Public History and a Storyteller in Residence at the SmallMatters Institute. Over the years, I have taught at Monroe Community College, the Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher College. I have published numerous Guest Essays, Letters, Book Reviews and Opinion pieces in The New York Times, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the Buffalo News, the Rochester Patriot, the Providence Journal, the Providence Business News, the Brown Alumni Magazine, the New London Day, the Boston Herald, the Messenger Post Newspapers, the Wedge, the Empty Closet, the CITY, Lake Affect Magazine and Brighton Connections. My poetry appears in The Criterion: An International Journal in English and Rundenalia and my academic writing in War, Literature and the Arts and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Starting in February 2013, I wrote for three Democratic and Chronicle  blogs, "Make City Schools Better," "Unite Rochester," and the "Editorial Board." When my tenure at the D & C  ended, I wanted to continue conversations first begun there. And start new ones.  So we created this new space, Talker of the Town, where all are invited to join. I don’t like to say these posts are “mine.” Very few of them are the sole product of my sometimes overheated imagination. Instead, I call them partnerships and collaborations. Or as they say in education, “peer group work.” Talker of the Town might better be Talkers of the Town. The blog won’t thrive without your leads, text, pictures, ideas, facebook shares, tweets, comments and criticisms.

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