INQUIRER REPORT ON STOCKTON STUDY OF MLK IN CAMDEN
753 Walnut Street - Camden, N.J.
MLK's Home address in June 1950
The Stockton University "study" of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s time in Camden concluded "King may reasonably be said to have 'stayed' or 'visited' 753 Walnut Street at certain points in time, but at no time could be said to have 'lived' there." That conclusion is an oxymoron of semantics, as it has been clearly established as a fact that he did in fact visit, stay and lived there at very specific points in time between 1947 and 1950.
In regards to the Philadelphia Inquirer article on the Stockton study of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s time in Camden, NJ, - "King Tie to House Disputed" (Published on Monday, February 26, 2018), it should be noted that there is no disputing that King "lived" at 753 Walnut Street, as King himself signed the legal complaint in Maple Shade, listing that address as his residence, and others who lived there have testified to remembering him living there.
If Stockton is going to use semantics to dispute King's ties to the house as his residence, then the "study" itself is in dispute, as it is incomplete and failed to follow basic social research techniques.
It should be noted that the $20,000 Stockton "study," commissioned and financed by the State of New Jersey, was conducted by six all Caucasian professors and graduate students who only reviewed the published books and articles. They did not survey the detailed public records obtained by Patrick Duff, nor did they conduct any interviews or oral histories with any of the living witnesses.
That the published historical records do not reflect King's time in Camden, or the incident at Maple Shade, makes it a Deep Political event, and even more significant than the official history as it stands today. It is truly amazing that we are learning of these things for the first time fifty years after they occurred, and as their true significance is realized, King's biographies and the history of the civil rights movement in America must be re-written, not discarded as insignificant, as the Stockton report suggests.
For his own personal and understandable reasons King himself did not want to reveal to his family or promote the fact that he was evicted from a bar at gunpoint on a Sunday night.
But we now know for a fact that King lived in Camden at 753 Walnut Street in June 1950, and the event at Mary's Place Cafe in Maple Shade inspired him to make civil rights a part of his ministry.
How can that NOT be significant?
Since the incomplete and flawed Stockton report was officially released Patrick Duff discovered yet another newspaper article from 1998 that quotes Jethroe Hunt, then 77 years old, who was a young man in 1950. Hunt grew up in the 753 Walnut Street house, and it was his second floor back room King and McCall used while he was away in the Army for three years. Hunt had just returned on the very June 1950 day that King said he was going to go to Maple Shade to get something to eat, and ignored Hunt's warning that he wouldn't be served there.
King replied by saying, "We've got to get this thing changed to the point where we can go anywhere."
This indicates that King and company didn't just didn't stop at Mary's Place at random, but went there specifically because they knew they wouldn't be served and to instigate an incident, which they did.
At the time King's Crozier seminary was on summer break. King was reading about Ghandi's use of non-violent civil disobedience against British rule in India and was taking a seminar with renown black sociologist Dr. Ira De A. Reid at Haverford College, where there is now a social research center named after Reid.
Reid's seminar was on proper oral history research techniques, and Reid had his students, including King, travel around the south interviewing older black Baptist preachers.
Years later in 1958 King gave a speech on the use of non-violent civil disobedience in the civil rights movement to a conference of Quakers in Cape May, NJ, when he quoted one of the old preachers he interviewed, who didn't have good command of the King's English but got his point across when he said: "Let judgement rain down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. Lord, we ain't what we ought to be, we ain't what we wanna be, but thank almighty Gold we ain't what we was."
Now we know King spent some considerable time in Camden, preached there, lived at 753 Walnut Street, a house that should be preserved, and he was involved in an incident at Mary's Place Cafe in Maple Shade, filed charges against bar owner Ernest Nichols, the first civil rights case he was involved in, and it was a planned strategy that inspired him to make civil rights an important part of his ministry, which got him killed.
King was assisted in his case by Camden Dr. Ulysses Samson Wiggins, and now Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard in Camden ends at Wiggins Park.
753 Walnut Street should be restored and preserved like another historic Camden house on MLK Blvd. - The Walt Whitman house.
When King was assassinated, and on other occasions, riots broke out in Camden and whole blocks of houses were burned to the ground, but Eleanor Ray, a local girl who obtained a degree from Rutgers, was curator of the Whitman house during the riots and saved it by standing on the front steps of the house with a broom, and swatting it at any rioters who threatened it.
Now 753 Walnut Street needs to be preserved like the Whitman House, and Patrick Duff is the new Eleanor Ray.
753 Walnut Street - Camden, N.J.
MLK's Home address in June 1950
The Stockton University "study" of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s time in Camden concluded "King may reasonably be said to have 'stayed' or 'visited' 753 Walnut Street at certain points in time, but at no time could be said to have 'lived' there." That conclusion is an oxymoron of semantics, as it has been clearly established as a fact that he did in fact visit, stay and lived there at very specific points in time between 1947 and 1950.
In regards to the Philadelphia Inquirer article on the Stockton study of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s time in Camden, NJ, - "King Tie to House Disputed" (Published on Monday, February 26, 2018), it should be noted that there is no disputing that King "lived" at 753 Walnut Street, as King himself signed the legal complaint in Maple Shade, listing that address as his residence, and others who lived there have testified to remembering him living there.
If Stockton is going to use semantics to dispute King's ties to the house as his residence, then the "study" itself is in dispute, as it is incomplete and failed to follow basic social research techniques.
It should be noted that the $20,000 Stockton "study," commissioned and financed by the State of New Jersey, was conducted by six all Caucasian professors and graduate students who only reviewed the published books and articles. They did not survey the detailed public records obtained by Patrick Duff, nor did they conduct any interviews or oral histories with any of the living witnesses.
That the published historical records do not reflect King's time in Camden, or the incident at Maple Shade, makes it a Deep Political event, and even more significant than the official history as it stands today. It is truly amazing that we are learning of these things for the first time fifty years after they occurred, and as their true significance is realized, King's biographies and the history of the civil rights movement in America must be re-written, not discarded as insignificant, as the Stockton report suggests.
For his own personal and understandable reasons King himself did not want to reveal to his family or promote the fact that he was evicted from a bar at gunpoint on a Sunday night.
But we now know for a fact that King lived in Camden at 753 Walnut Street in June 1950, and the event at Mary's Place Cafe in Maple Shade inspired him to make civil rights a part of his ministry.
How can that NOT be significant?
Since the incomplete and flawed Stockton report was officially released Patrick Duff discovered yet another newspaper article from 1998 that quotes Jethroe Hunt, then 77 years old, who was a young man in 1950. Hunt grew up in the 753 Walnut Street house, and it was his second floor back room King and McCall used while he was away in the Army for three years. Hunt had just returned on the very June 1950 day that King said he was going to go to Maple Shade to get something to eat, and ignored Hunt's warning that he wouldn't be served there.
King replied by saying, "We've got to get this thing changed to the point where we can go anywhere."
This indicates that King and company didn't just didn't stop at Mary's Place at random, but went there specifically because they knew they wouldn't be served and to instigate an incident, which they did.
At the time King's Crozier seminary was on summer break. King was reading about Ghandi's use of non-violent civil disobedience against British rule in India and was taking a seminar with renown black sociologist Dr. Ira De A. Reid at Haverford College, where there is now a social research center named after Reid.
Reid's seminar was on proper oral history research techniques, and Reid had his students, including King, travel around the south interviewing older black Baptist preachers.
Years later in 1958 King gave a speech on the use of non-violent civil disobedience in the civil rights movement to a conference of Quakers in Cape May, NJ, when he quoted one of the old preachers he interviewed, who didn't have good command of the King's English but got his point across when he said: "Let judgement rain down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. Lord, we ain't what we ought to be, we ain't what we wanna be, but thank almighty Gold we ain't what we was."
Now we know King spent some considerable time in Camden, preached there, lived at 753 Walnut Street, a house that should be preserved, and he was involved in an incident at Mary's Place Cafe in Maple Shade, filed charges against bar owner Ernest Nichols, the first civil rights case he was involved in, and it was a planned strategy that inspired him to make civil rights an important part of his ministry, which got him killed.
King was assisted in his case by Camden Dr. Ulysses Samson Wiggins, and now Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard in Camden ends at Wiggins Park.
753 Walnut Street should be restored and preserved like another historic Camden house on MLK Blvd. - The Walt Whitman house.
When King was assassinated, and on other occasions, riots broke out in Camden and whole blocks of houses were burned to the ground, but Eleanor Ray, a local girl who obtained a degree from Rutgers, was curator of the Whitman house during the riots and saved it by standing on the front steps of the house with a broom, and swatting it at any rioters who threatened it.
Now 753 Walnut Street needs to be preserved like the Whitman House, and Patrick Duff is the new Eleanor Ray.
