NJ Monthly - January 2017

HISTORY
New Life for
Forgotten MLK
Site in Camden
;; ;;;; 1950, a young seminary stu-
dent signed his name—M.L. King Jr.—
to a legal complaint, listing his address
as ;;; Walnut Street, Camden.

More than ;; years later, Martin Luther King Jr.’s Camden residence has been saved from demolition, thanks in large part to the e;orts of local car salesman Patrick Du;, an amateur historian who documented the home’s historic significance. The two-story, attached house in one of Camden’s most blighted neighborhoods was to be razed; instead, the city has designated the house a historic site, and a movement is afoot to restore the structure and turn it into a civil rights museum and o;ce space for the local NAACP.

King lived in the house from the end of ;;;; to ;;;;, while attending Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. His Camden residency had been all but forgotten until Du;, investigating a related matter, happened upon the legal complaint signed by King following a June ;;, ;;;;, incident in nearby Maple Shade.

Du;’s first clue was a newspaper article describing how King and his Camden roommate, fellow Crozer student Walter McCall, and two other individuals were unceremoniously tossed out of Mary’s Café, a Maple Shade bar on what is now Route ;;.

King and his companions went to the local police station and filed a civil complaint against the owner of the bar. It is believed to be the first time King took legal action in the name of civil rights. The president of the local NAACP chapter and an NAACP lawyer represented King and his companions in the case, which was dismissed after the white witnesses who had agreed to testify failed to show up in court.

Mary’s Café was torn down several years ago, but through Du;’s e;orts, a historic plaque is being created for the site. As for the Walnut Street house, Du;’s research led him to Jeannette Hunt, a relative of McCall’s by marriage and the current owner of the now boarded-up building, once owned by