Benjamin F. Bunn
Reverend Benjamin F. Bunn (1906-1989) was a Baptist minister and the founder of the Charlottesville chapter of the NAACP.
Accomplishments and Impact in Charlottesville
Bunn was the pastor of First Baptist Church for thirty-six years, the longest-serving pastor in the church’s history. He founded the Charlottesville NAACP in 1945 with his wife, Imogene.
Additionally, Bunn organized the Charlottesville Interracial Commission, which worked with progressive white people in the area to fight for equality for African Americans and have discussions about race. The Bunns were advocates for total desegregation, and single-handedly desegregated UVA Hospital and the public libraries. Bunn was a strong advocate for the Black community in political and in social life.
In November 1953, he led a campaign to get the city to hire African American police-women to help children walk to school safely.[1] The Bunns were also politically active, campaigning for and endorsing candidates in a community that broadly wanted to exclude Black people from politics. In 1991, Reverend Bunn was posthumously awarded the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award.
Frances Brand portrait
Bunn is one of several people commemorated by the late 20th-century artist Frances Brand as part of her Firsts series.[2]
Notable events
- November 20, 1948 – The Southern Conference for Human Welfare is held at Madison Hall at the University of Virginia and a group was expected to express support for President Harry Truman's proposed civil rights program. Speakers included the Reverend Malcolm R. Sutherland, Jr. of the Thomas Jefferson Unitarian Church, the Reverend Benjamin F. Bunn of the First Baptist Church on West Main Street. [3]
References
- ↑ Web. Charlottesville City Council meeting minutes, .pdf, Council Chambers, City of Charlottesville, November 16, 1953.
- ↑ Branigan, Michelle Marie (December 1998). A Biography of Frances Brand, an American Painter and Social Activist (PhD). Indiana University.
- ↑ Web. Meeting Tomorrow Will Draft Declaration on Human Rights, Daily Progress Digitized Microfilm, Lindsay family, November 19, 1948, retrieved November 19, 2022.