MLK in Camden Revisited

MLK in Camden Revisited – By William E. Kelly [billkelly3@gmail.com (609) 425-6297

Camden, N. J. - Birmingham, Selma and Memphis are all well-known places in the history of civil rights in America, but few have ever heard of Maple Shade and Camden, until now, as the story is still unfolding.

In June 1950, when young seminary student Michael King signed his name to a legal complaint,  - the first such official civil rights action he would take, he listed his legal residence as 753 Walnut Street, Camden, N.J., a few miles away.

Today, more than sixty-five years later, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Camden residence will be saved from demolition, restored and developed into a civil rights museum and community center in one of the city's most blighted neighborhoods.

When car salesman and amateur historian Patrick Duff discovered the building's historic significance, he had a hard time convincing state preservation officers, city historians and even longtime neighbors that Martin Luther King, Jr. lived there, and the building was worth saving, as the state wanted documentation, the city historians were incredulous, and the neighbors didn't remember King walking their streets. The city ordered the building brazed after Duff began to seek the historical designation that would preserve it.

Then Duff got the attention of Camden mayor Dana Redd and powerful political boss Rep. Donald Norcross, both of whom wrote letters to the state department requesting the historical designation.  Norcross then got his fellow Congressman Rep. John Lewis (D. Ga.), to support the preservation effort, and all three recently spoke at a press conference in front of the house that hasn't been lived in in twenty years, calling for its preservation.

"This place of historic real estate must be saved for generations unborn," said Lewis, who was in the area to receive the Liberty Medal at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia. "Martin Luther King, Jr. didn't just help change America; he helped change the world."

With these latest developments, the history of the civil rights movement in America and biographies of Martin Luther King, Jr. will have to be rewritten, as new details emerge of MLK's time in Camden clearly indicate it was a crossroads, a turning point in his life, and the civil rights movement in America.

The two years King spent here while attending Crozer Theological Seminary go largely unrecognized in his biographies, but new evidence is continually being discovered that indicates something very special happened here, an event that radicalized King, sparked a fire in his soul, and convinced him to dedicate his ministry to civil rights.

While King's studies at Crozier, in Chester, Pennsylvania are well documented, his residency in Camden had escaped general recognition until recently, as Patrick Duff has discovered the story behind that event, one piece at a time.

In reading back issues of local newspapers while researching another issue, Duff came across an article "The Bar that Started  A Crusade,"  that related how Martin Luther King had filed a legal complaint against a Maple Shade, N.J. bar owner for refusing to serve him and three friends in 1950.

Researching the issue further Duff found other news articles that indicated that was the first time King had taken such legal action, and the event may have played a more significant role in King's life than previously believed, and his hunch has been born out.

Although the roadside cafe bar called Mary's Place, and later known as the Morristown Pub was purchased by the N.J. Department of Transportation and torn down, Duff obtained a copy of the original complaint, signed by King and three companions - fellow Crozer student Walter McCall, social worker Doris Wilson and Pearl Smith, a Philadelphia police women.

What jumped out at Duff was the address King gave as his residence - 753 Walnut Street, Camden, the same address as McCall.

When Duff tracked down the owner of the now boarded up row house, Jeanette Kill Hunt, and asked her if she had any association with Martin Luther King, she replied, "Well he used to live in my house."

She recalled King living there when she was a young girl, saying King and McCall rented a back room from her father, a relative of McCall.

"In those days, anyone was welcome in our house. It had what we called a swinging door. My cousin Walter (McCall) was King's friend, and the two of them lived in the back room upstairs on and off for two years while they were in school."

Duff then went to the Maple Shade city council with a proposal to make the clover leaf location of Mary's Place a public park, and place an historic marker on the spot, highlighting its significance. He also convinced a Morristown architecture firm to design the park pro-bono.

In Camden the owner of the house agreed to allow it to be preserved as a museum, and Duff obtained strong local allies in Father Michael Doyle, whose parish includes the house, and Rutgers Camden Law School, whose attorneys agreed to do the legal end and paperwork. Such a museum and center devoted to King and civil rights, they all agreed, could lead to the redevelopment of the whole neighborhood.

But shortly after a fund was established to restore the house the state notified Duff that they did not consider the site of Mary's Place or the house in Camden to be of historical significance, and to top it off, the owner of the house received a letter from Camden City officials ordering her to demolish the blighted building in the middle of a block of rubble and crack houses.

Undeterred, Duff went back to the archives and discovered the Philadelphia Tribune, the city's venerable black newspaper, had a reporter cover the Maple Shade incident and provided the key elements that could give it historical designation and certify the time here as a life changing crossroads for King and some of the others involved.

THE INCIDENT AT MARY'S PLACE CAFE

In June 1950 Crozer seminary student Michael King had yet to become Martin Luther, Jr. King and was known as Michael King. At the time King and fellow Crozier student Walter McCall were on summer break from Crozer and working as associates of Haverford College professor Ira Reid, the first tenured black faculty member at the Philadelphia college. An Ivy League sociologist, Reid conducted seminars on oral history techniques, and then sent his students out into the field to interview old Baptist ministers in the south. Today there is a student center at Haverford named after Reid.

King's father gave him a black Cadillac when he graduated from Atlanta's Moorehouse school, where King first met Reid and McCall.  King graduated early with honors and was accepted into Crozer, a predominately white and well respected school.

It was a Sunday afternoon when King, McCall and their dates Smith and Wilson, went for a drive, destination unknown, but later in the day, around midnight, they pulled off the highway that is now Route 73, and stopped at the roadside cafe known as Mary's Place.

While the identity of Mary has yet to be determined, the cafe and liquor license were then being operated by Ernest Nichols, a big, imposing German immigrant who fought in the German army in World War I.

King and his companions entered and sat down at a table and noticed a few people at the bar, including three college students and possibly a black guy.

After being ignored for a while, King got up and approached the bar, asking for service.

Nichols refused to serve them and when it appeared that King and company were not leaving until they were served, Nichols went into the back room and emerged with a gun, saying, "I'd kill for less than this," and then opened the door and fired the gun in the air, some say more than once.

That was enough to get King and his companions to leave, but they went to the police and filed charges against Nichols.

The police went to the bar, took the weapon from Nichols, apparently got statements from the customers, including three college students at the bar, and arrested Nichols on two charges, one for violating the relatively new and untested civil rights law, and the other was for a weapons violation.

THE CASE IN COURT

The incident was not something King wanted to brag about. Getting thrown out of a bar at gunpoint at midnight on a Sunday was not something King wanted his father to know about. A year earlier when King lived in the school dorm he berated another black student for drinking beer in the dorm as it reflected on all of the other black students, a distinctive minority. Now he was living off campus with McCall, drinking beer, shooting pool and dating, and was in trouble. He would have to appear in court before a judge over somewhat embarrassing circumstances, needed legal help and couldn't call home.

As Lewis said in front of the house, “there's good trouble and bad trouble,” and in this case they were getting into good trouble.

King and McCall contacted the head of the Burlington County NAACP, who referred them to Robert Burke Johnson, a lawyer with the NAACP in Camden. Lloyd Barros, he pastor of Zion Baptist church in Camden also put them in contact with Dr. Ulysses Wiggins, the head of the local branches of the NAACP.

Like King, Dr. Wiggins was originally from Georgia, and was a respected black professional who offered them legal assistance. The NAACP attorney, Robert Burke Johnson, an assistant city prosecutor, represented King and the other complainants at the preliminary hearing in Maple Shade Municipal Court before Judge Percy Charlton.

The first Philadelphia Tribune article appears to have been based on statements King and McCall gave Dr. Wiggins, but the second Tribune account quotes Nichols’ attorney W. Thomas McCann. McCann explained to the judge that Nichols thought King and company wanted take-out liquor, which he was illegal to sell at that hour on Sunday. But as the Tribune article puts it, he was unable to explain Nichols shooting the gun, though Nichols did say that was how he called his dog.

The judge held Nichols on $500 bail.

Nichols had a good attorney in McCann, and the case is mentioned in McCann's obituary.

With Dr.  Wiggins, Johnson and the NAACP behind King and McCall and McCann, a noted Morristown attorney defending Nichols, a dramatic court case was shaping up that could have rivaled the Scopes trial and make them all famous, but then the judge dismissed the case. Apparently, the parents of the three college student witnesses put pressure on them and they declined to testify, and others testified that Nichols did serve blacks.  So the civil rights charge was dismissed and Nichols pleaded guilty and paid a small fine for the weapons charge.

Other than a few newspaper articles, years apart, and a brief mention of the Maple Shade incident in one of King's biographies, Martin Luther King’s life in Camden went generally unnoticed, even under the radar of longtime residents and local historians, one of whom emphatically declared that, "Martin Luther King never set foot in Camden.” But the story is now well documented, and aspects of it are still emerging, as we learn more about the short but significant time King spent in Camden.

Nichols’ attorney McCann said that he heard King testify before Congress on the radio, and when a Senator asked King what sparked his interest in civil rights, he recalled the incident at Maple Shade. But in those pre-ESPN days, the details are today elusive, as Duff collects the historical documentation necessary to get state recognition and monetary grants.

The support of the politicians also apparently led to the cleanup of Walnut Street, and the clearing of the adjacent vacant lot. "It looks like a different street," said Duff, a bit bewildered at the sudden change in fortune.

Then Republican Thomas Kean, son of the former governor, introduced a bill in the New Jersey State legislature that would ensure the building’s survival and making it a bipartisan issue supported by both parties.

While Maple Shade erects an historic marker and considers a park, Camden begins to figure out how to restore the house and revive the neighborhood, making the MLK house a tourist attraction much like Walt Whitman’s house, not far away, on MLK Boulevard ends at Wiggins Park on the Delaware River waterfront.

As it was pointed out by Camden’s mayor, the street named after King ends at the park named after Dr. Wiggins, just as the lives of Dr. Wiggins and King came together in Camden for that brief but significant time.

Lewis concluded by saying, "I would love to come back here and visit, and see an historic marker at this place and this building restored, and it will be a day of jubilation."

The day of jubilation is getting closer.

MLK in Camden - The Story Unfolds

MLK in Camden

William E. Kelly, Jr.

Billkelly3@gmail.com

 

CAMDEN, N. J.  Birmingham, Memphis and Selma are well-known places in the history of civil rights in America, but few have ever heard of Maple Shade or Camden, and put them in the same category, until now, as the story is still unfolding.

In June 1950, when young seminary student Michael King signed his name to an official complaint, - the first such civil rights legal action he would take, he listed his legal residence as 753 Walnut Street, Camden, N.J., a few miles away.

Today, more than sixty-five years later, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Camden residence will be saved from demolition, restored to its 1950era ambiance, and serve as a civil rights museum, community center and tourist attraction in one of the city's most blighted neighborhoods. How this all came about is a story unto itself.

As is often the case it began a few years ago when local South Jersey car salesman and amateur historian Patrick Duff went looking for something else – attracted to Maple Shade as a town that called Duff’s attention because of its overzealous fear of the Ebola virus. While doing a basic background check on the town that truly is shaded by streets lined with trees, he came across an article “The Bar that Started a Crusade,” that told the story of how Martin Luther King, Jr. had been unceremoniously tossed out of a neighborhood bar and made a big stink of it in court, thus, at first glance, tarnishing the town’s image.

Although the roadside cafe bar called Mary's Place, and later known as the Morristown Pub was purchased by the N.J. Department of Transportation and torn down a few years before Duff began his crusade, he went to the Maple Shade city council. At first they were cool to Duff’s proposal to make the clover leaf location of Mary's Place a public park, place an historic marker on the spot and highlight its significance. But he also convinced a Morristown architecture firm to design the park pro-bono, and found a sympathetic ear in the Maple Shade city manager.

While at city hall early one MLK holiday Duff asked for and got a copy of the original June 1950 complaint, signed by King and three companions - fellow Crozer student Walter McCall, social worker Doris Wilson and Pearl Smith, a Philadelphia policewomen.

What jumped out at Duff was the address King gave as his residence - 753 Walnut Street, Camden, the same address as McCall.

When Duff tracked down the owner of the now boarded up row house, Jeanette Kill Hunt, and asked her if she had any association with Martin Luther King, she replied, "Well he used to live in my house."

She recalled King living there when she was a young girl, saying King and McCall rented a back room from her father, a relative of McCall. "In those days, anyone was welcome in our house,” she said. “It had what we called a swinging door. My cousin Walter (McCall) was King's friend, and the two of them lived in the back room upstairs on and off for two years while they were in school."

Duff and an Inquirer reporter went to the 753 Walnut Street address and found a boarded up row house covered with graffiti and drug gang symbols, its side and back yard littered with fast food wrappers and used needles, surrounded by boulder strewn boulders, bricks and broken glass. The house, abandoned for 20 years, was a crack house, its only saving grace was that it was attached as a duplex to a house where someone lived.

Once Duff discovered the building's historic significance he had a hard time convincing state preservation officers, city historians and even longtime neighbors that Martin Luther King, Jr. actually lived there and the building was worth saving. The state wanted documentation, the city historians were incredulous, and the neighbors said they just didn't remember King walking their streets. Shortly after Duff began to seek the historical designation that would preserve it the city ordered the building razed as part of its efforts to counter blighted and abandoned buildings.

Then Duff got the attention of Camden mayor Dana Redd and powerful political boss Rep. Donald Norcross, both of whom wrote letters to the state department requesting the historical designation.  Norcross then got his fellow Congressman Rep. John Lewis (D. Ga.), a friend and King colleague, to support the preservation effort, and all three recently spoke at a September 19  press conference in front of the house calling for its preservation.

"This place of historic real estate must be saved for generations unborn," said Lewis, who was in the area to receive the Liberty Medal at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia, a prestigious award that has also been given to the Dali Lama.

Lewis said that it was important to save the house as an historic site because, "Martin Luther King, Jr. didn't just help change America; he helped change the world."

With these latest developments, biographies of Martin Luther King, Jr. and histories of the civil rights movement in America will have to be rewritten, as new details emerge of MLK's time in Camden clearly indicate that it was a crossroads, a turning point in his life, and helped instigate the civil rights movement in America.

The two years King spent here while attending Crozer Theological Seminary go largely unrecognized in his biographies, but new evidence is continually being discovered that something very special happened here, an event that radicalized King, sparked a fire in his soul, and convinced him to dedicate his ministry to civil rights.

While King's studies at Crozier, in Chester, Pa., are documented, his residency in Camden has previously escaped general recognition until recently, as Patrick Duff has discovered the story behind the house, one piece at a time. Researching the issue further Duff found other news articles that indicates that the 1950 complaint was the first time King had taken such legal action, and the event may have played a more significant role in King's life than previously believed, and his hunch is being born out.

In Camden the owner of the house agreed to allow it to be preserved as a museum, and Duff obtained strong local allies in Father Michael Doyle, whose parish includes the house, and Rutgers Camden Law School, whose attorneys agreed to do the legal end and paperwork pro bono. Such a museum and center devoted to King and civil rights, they all agreed, could lead to the redevelopment of the whole neighborhood.

After the state asked for more documentation and the city ordered the house torn down, Duff remained undeterred, went back to the archives and discovered the Philadelphia Tribune, the city's venerable black newspaper, had covered the Maple Shade incident and provided the key elements that could give it historical designation and certify the time here as a life changing crossroads for King and some of the others involved.

THE INCIDENT AT MARY'S PLACE

In June 1950 Crozier seminary student Michael King had yet to become Martin Luther, Jr. King and was known to friends as Mike or more formally as Michael King. At the time King and fellow Crozier student Walter McCalll were on summer break from Crozer and working as interns for Haverford professor Ira Reid, the first tenured black faculty member at the Philadelphia college. King and McCall knew the Ivy League sociologist from the Moorehouse academy in George. At the time Reid was conducting seminars on oral history techniques, after which he would send his students out into the field to interview old Baptist ministers in the south. Today there is a student center at Haverford named after Reid.

When he graduated early and with honors from Moorehouse and was accepted into Crozer, a predominately white and well respected school, King’s father gave him a 1948 black Cadillac as a reward. When King first arrived at Crozer, he stayed in a dorm, where he once berated another black student for drinking beer, as it reflected on all of the black students. But by his second year, when McCall showed up from Georgia, King began to occasionally drink beer and shoot pool, and he moved out of the dorm to live with McCall and his cousins in the back second floor bedroom of the Walnut street row house in Camden. At that time Walnut Street in Camden resembled the tree lined streets of Maple Shade today.

It was a Sunday afternoon when King, McCall and their dates Smith and Wilson, went for a drive, destination unknown, but late in the day they pulled off the highway that is now Route 73 and stopped at the roadside cafe known as Mary's Place.

While the identity of Mary has yet to be determined, the cafe and liquor license were then being operated by Ernest Nickles, a big, imposing German immigrant.

King and his companions noticed a few people at the bar, including three college students and possibly a black guy, and sat down at a table.

After being ignored for awhile, King got up and approached the bar, asking for service.

Nickles refused to serve them and when it appeared that King and company were not leaving until they were served, Nickles went into the back room and emerged with a gun, saying, "I'd kill for less than this.” He then opened the door and fired the gun in the air, some say more than once.

That was enough to get King and his companions to leave, but they went to the police station where they filed charges against Nickles.

The police went to the bar, took the weapon from Nickles, apparently got statements from the customers, including three college students at the bar, and arrested Nickles on two charges.

THE CASE IN COURT

At first King was very upset about the whole incident, and was somewhat embarrassed by what happened, as he couldn’t tell his father or family that he was kicked out of a bar and had instigated some legal trouble that would end up in court and possibly the news.

Instead of calling home, King and McCall contacted the head of the Burlington County NAACP, who referred them to Robert Burke Johnson, a lawyer with the NAACP in Camden. Lloyd Borros, the pastor of Zion Baptist church in Camden also put them in contact with Dr. Ulysses Wiggins, the head of the local branches of the NAACP. Like King, Dr. Wiggins was originally from Georgia, and was a respected black professional who offered them legal assistance. The NAACP attorney, Robert Burke Johnson, an assistant city prosecutor, represented King and the other complainants at the preliminary hearing in Maple Shade Municipal Court before Judge Percy Charlton.

The first Philadelphia Tribune article uncovered by Duff appears to have been based only on statements King and McCall gave Dr. Wiggins, but according to the second Tribune account, Nickles' attorney W. Thomas McCann, of Morristown, explained to the court that Nickles thought King and company wanted take-out liquor, which he was unable to sell at that hour on Sunday by law. But as the Tribune article puts it, he was unable to explain Nickles shooting the gun in the air, although Nickles did say in a statement that was how he called his dog.

The judge held Nickles on $500 bail.

Nickles had a good attorney in McCann, who was respected in the county court, and the Maple Shade case is mentioned in McCann's obituary among his other accomplishments.

With McCann defending Nickles and Wiggins, Johnson and the NAACP behind King and company, a dramatic civil rights court case was shaping up that could have rivaled the Scopes trial and make them all famous. But then, after the preliminary hearing, the case was dismissed. Apparently, the parents of the three college student who were to be witnesses at the trial, put pressure on their kids and the students declined to testify. So one charge was dismissed and Nickles apparently pleaded guilty and paid a small fine for the second charge.

Other than a few newspaper articles, years apart, that mention the Maple Shade incident, and a passing reference to it in one of King's biographies, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s short but significant time in Camden went generally unnoticed. That King lived in Camden even went under the radar of longtime residents and local historians, one of whom emphatically declared that, "Martin Luther King never set foot in Camden."

Yet, the story is now well documented, and aspects of it are still emerging as we learn more about it.

Nickle's attorney McCann said that he heatd King testify before Congress on the radio, and when a Senator asked King what sparked his interest in civil rights, he recalled the Maple Shade incident, but in those pre-ESPN days, the details are elusive, as Duff continues to collect the historical documentation necessary to get state recognition and monetary grants.

The support of the politicians led to the cleanup of Walnut Street and the clearing of the adjacent lot. "It looks like a different street," said Duff, looking a bit bewildered at the sudden change in the street scape as well as his fortune and the destiny of the house.

While Maple Shade erects an historic marker and considers an MLK park, Camden begins to look for funds to restore the house and revive the neighborhood.

After giving a speech in front of the house on Walnut Street in which he recounted his first meeting and association with King, Lewis said, "I would love to come back here someday to visit again, and see a marker, and this place, this building restored, and it will be a day of jubilation. Don't give up, don't get lost in a sea of despair. Keep the faith."

And no one has kept that faith stronger than Patrick Duff. As Norcross said of him, one person can make a difference, and it doesn’t take education, power or money, like Duff, you just have to be determined, and be right.

 

Duff peeks inside the MLK House in Camden 

 

Duff, Father Michael Doyle and the head of the local NAACP in Camden 

MLK in Camden - The Secret History

 MLK in Camden - The Secret History 

            Camden, N. J.  - The history of the civil rights movement in America and biographies of Martin Luther King, Jr.  will have to be rewritten as new details emerge of MLK's time in Camden, N.J.

The two years King spent here while attending Crozer Theological Seminary go largely unrecognized in his biographies, but new evidence is continually being discovered that indicates something very special happened here, an event that radicalized King, sparked a fire in his heart and convinced him to devote his ministry to civil rights.

While King's studies at Crozier, across the Delaware River in Chester, Pa., are well documented, his residency in Camden had escaped general recognition, until recently, as Patrick Duff has discovered the story behind that event, one piece at a time.

In reading back issues of newspapers Duff came across an article "The Bar that Started  A Crusade,"  that related how in 1950 Martin Luther King had filed charges against a Maple Shade, N.J. bar owner for refusing to serve him and three friends.

Researching the issue further Duff found other news articles that indicated that was the first time King had taken such legal action, and the event may have played a more significant role in King's life than previously believed, and his hunch has been born out as more details emerge.

Although the roadside bar called Mary's Place where the incident occurred, was purchased by the N.J. Department of Transportation and had been torn down, Duff went to the Maple Shade city hall and got a copy of the original complaint, signed by King and three companions - fellow Crozer student Walter McCall, social worker Doris Wilson and Pearl Smith, a Philadelphia policewomen.

What jumped out at Duff was the address King gave as his residence - 753 Walnut Street, Camden, the same address as McCall.

The owner of the now boarded up row house recalled King living there when she was a young girl, saying King and McCall rented a back room from her father and they were very congenial guests.

Duff then went to the Maple Shade city council with a proposal to make the clover leaf location of Mary's Place a public park, and place an historic marker on the spot highlighting its significance. He also convinced a Morristown architecture firm to design the park pro-bono.

In Camden the owner of the house agreed to allow it to be preserved as a museum, and Duff obtained strong local allies in Father Michael Doyle, whose parish includes the house, and Rutgers University Camden Law School. Such a museum and center devoted to King and civil rights they agreed, could lead to the redevelopment of the whole neighborhood.

But shortly after a fund was established to restore the house as it was in 1950 when King lived there, the state notified Duff that they did not consider the site of Mary's Cafe or the house in Camden to be historically significant, and to top it off - the owner of the house received a letter from Camden City officials ordering her to demolish the building.

Undeterred, Duff went back to the archives and discovered two articles in the Philadelphia Tribune, the city's venerable black newspaper. They had covered the Maple Shade incident in detail and provided the key details that certify the event as a life changing crossroads for King, and many of the others involved.

THE INCIDENT AT MARY'S PLACE CAFE

In June 1950 Crozer seminary students Walter McCall and Michael King - he had yet to become Martin Luther, were on  summer leave from Crozer and working as associates of Ira Reid, the first tenured black faculty member at Haverford College on the Main Line in Philadelphia. King had known Reid as one of his professors in Georgia, and had previously taken a seminar with Reid, at Haverford on developing interview techniques and oral history as part of a program to document the lives of Baptist preachers.

It was a Sunday afternoon when King and McCall and their dates Smith and Wilson, went for a drive, destination unknown, but later in the day, on the way home, they pulled off the highway that is now known as Route 73 and stopped at a roadside cafe Mary's Place.

While the identity of Mary has yet to be ascertained, the cafe and liquor license were then owned by one Ernest Nickles, a big, imposing German immigrant.

King and his companions entered and sat down at a table or booth, and noticed a few people at the bar, including three Philadelphia college kids and possibly a black guy.

After being ignored for a while, King got up and approached the bar, asking for service.

Nickles refused to serve them and when it appeared that King and company were not leaving until they were served, Nickles went into the back room and emerged with a gun, saying, "I'd kill for less than this," and then opened the door and fired the gun in the air.

That was enough for King and his companions to leave, but they went directly to the police station where they filed charges against Nickles.

The police went to the bar, took the weapon from Nickles, apparently got statements from the customers, and arrested Nickles on two charges.

ATHE CASE IN COURT

King and McCall then apparently contacted the head of the Burlington County NAACP, who referred them to Robert Burke Johnson, a lawyer with the NAACP in Camden. The pastor of Zion Baptist church in Camden Lloyd Burros also put them in contact with Dr. Ulysses Wiggins, the head of the local branches of the NAACP. Originally from Georgia, Wiggins was a respected black professional who offered legal assistance. So the NAACP attorney Robert Burke Johnson, an assistant prosecutor, represented King and the other complaintants at the preliminary hearing and trial in Maple Shade Municipal Court before Judge Percy Charlton.

The first Tribune article appears to have been based on statements King and McCall gave to Dr. Wiggins.

According to the second Philadelphia Tribune account, Nickles' attorney W. Thomas McCann, of Morristown, explained to the court that Nickles thought King wanted take-out liquor, which he was unable to sell at that hour on Sunday by law, but as the Tribune article puts it, he was unable to explain Nickles shooting the gun, though Nickles did say that was how he called his dog.

The judge held Nickles on $500 bail.

Nickles later went on to operate “Ernie’s Bar” near Riverside, New Jersey, and his attorney W. Thomas McCann became a very prominent Burlington County lawyer, who later wrote about the incident and it is mentioned in his obituary.

Walter McCall became a popular pastor in North Carolina, while Robert Johnson was appointed to the Camden School Board and insisted that segregation of Camden elementary schools come to an end, and it did, and he did it. There is now a Johnson Elementary school in Camden named after him.

Dr. Wiggins became a very prominent person in Camden, and Wiggins Park on the Camden waterfront is named after him.

Martin Luther King Boulevard that runs through downtown Camden ends at Wiggins Park, not far from Johnson Elementary School, so there is a crossroads in Camden that already reflects the contributions they made to Camden and out society.

MLK’s Camden home is historically significant, despite the opinions of the state of New Jersey bureaucrats and Camden housing officials, and it should be preserved and restored and become the centerpiece of a new, revived neighborhood.

The site of Mary’s Café in Maple Shade should be converted into a public park with some benches and an historic plaque that will reflect the story of what happened there.

And the biographies of Martin Luther King and the story of the civil rights movement in America should be updated to reflect this history, as we are still coming to know it.

William Kelly

BillKelly3@gmail.com

Philadelphia Tribune June 1950

City Policewomen Charges N.J. Inn Keeper with Bias

Maple Shade, N.J. - A Philadelphia police women, together with a social worker, and two college students, lodged complaints against a cafe proprietor of this borough early Monday morning for violation of the state's civil rights act when he allegedly refused to serve them and became abusive. The man, Ernest Nickles, proprietor of Mary's Cafe on Rt. S-41 and Main St., was also charged with brandishing a gun and using obscene language.

Mrs. Pearl Smith, the police women, of 735 N. 40th St. Philadelphia, and Miss Doris Wilson, same address, a Philadelphia child care worker, in company of Michael King, Atlanta, Ga., and Walter McCall of South Carolina, students of Crozer Theological Seminary, Chester, Pa., entered the place, they said, and asked to be served, According to statements made to Dr. Ulysses Wiggins, President of the state conference of Branches of the NAACP, they were ordered out by Nickles.

When they did not leave, the man allegedly ran in the back and obtained a gun which he fired in the air out the front door, saying, "I would kill for less than this.”

The group said several white patrons in the place attempted to calm the man and asked that the negroes be served. According to the police woman and her companions, these people volunteered to appear against Nickles should they press charges.

Leaving the establishment complaints were filed at police headquarters. The police were said to have obtained the gun from the man when he was taken to the police station. At a hearing held Monday morning Nickles appeared with his attorney, a Mr. McCall of Morristown who asked for a continuation of the hearing. Thursday evening was set by Municipal Judge Percy Charlton.

Robert Burke Johnson of the legal staff, of the NAACP, was contacted by Boyd Eatmon president of the Burlington County Branch. Not familiar with the legal procedure in New Jersey, the offended visitors, all highly reputable persons, were put in contact with Dr. Wiggins by the Rev. Lloyd A. Burros, pastor of the Zion Baptist Church, Camden.  Rev. Burros was called by the men, both of whom were his schoolmates at Crozer Seminary. King and McCall are in this section to assist Dr. Ira DeA. Reid with summer work at Haverford College.

Philadelphia Tribune June 20, 1950 (Page 1)

N.J. Inn Keeper Held After Four Charged Refusal

Maple Shade, N.J. ,- Municipal Court Magistrate Percy Carlton held Ernest Nichols, in $500 bail, on two counts at a hearing Thursday night, in complaints filed against him by Walter McCall, Crozer Theological Seminary student, and three other Negroes who were allegedly refused service last Sunday night, in Nickle’s cafe on Rt. S-41 and Main here.

The other complainants were Mrs. Pearl Smith, Philadelphia policewomen, Miss Doris Wilson, a Philadelphia social worker, and Michael King, another theological seminary student at Crozer seminary, Chester, Pa.

W. Thomas McCann, Morristown attorney who represented the cafe owner, was unable to convince the magistrate of the innocence of his client, although Nickles stated he served Negroes in his place of business. The attorney urged that the public be given both sides of the story.

He said his client testified in court that the four Negroes wanted to purchase “package liquor to carry out,” which he was not permitted to sell at that late hour. The “misunderstanding” arose over that, the attorney explained. Just why Nickles would fire a gun, as he was alleged to have done, could not be satisfactorily explained to the court.

Three white witnesses, who were patrons in the place at the time of the trouble, volunteered to testify in behalf of the complainants, and appeared at the trial. 

The police-women and her companions contacted the president of the New Jersey Conference of branches of NAACP, and were represented at Thursday night’s hearing by Attorney Robert Burk Johnson, legal aid of the association. Johnson is an assistant prosecutor of the Court of Common Pleas in the county of Camden.

Dr. Ulysses S. Wiggins heads the N.J. NAACP, branches.