Lucille Bluford, Obituary of Kansas City Heroine

Lucille Bluford blazed trail in civil rights
Former editor of newspaper dead at 91.

From staff and wire reports
Published Sunday, June 15, 2003
A prominent black editor and publisher who sued the University of Missouri-Columbia for the right to attend journalism courses died Friday.

Lucile Bluford, longtime editor and publisher of The Call newspaper in Kansas City, was 91.
Bluford, who suffered a stroke five years ago, had been hospitalized for several days with an infection before she died, the Associated Press reported.

A 1932 graduate of the University of Kansas with a major in journalism, Bluford applied to MU’s graduate journalism program in 1939.

She was accepted based on transcripts, but when she stood in the registration line, an official said she could not attend the school.

At the time, Missouri law restricted black students to Lincoln University in Jefferson City.

Bluford tried to be admitted to the university at least 11 times over the next four years and eventually sued the university. She lost, but the case resulted in establishment of a journalism program at Lincoln University.

“She fought bigotry in her personal life, and then she forced Missouri to face it,” former Kansas City mayor Emanuel Cleaver told the Associated Press.

A half-century later, she was awarded an honorary doctorate in humanities from MU.

“I have never known someone who was more proud in the way they reacted. You could tell that there was deep, deep gratitude that the university had recognized her,” former MU chancellor Haskell Monroe said in a telephone interview yesterday from his home in College Station, Texas.

In 1989, Bluford was quoted in the Tribune as saying she accepted the honorary degree “not only for myself but for the thousands of black students” the university had discriminated against over the years.

“Although I didn’t get in, many others have graduated and are graduating today, and that gives me great pleasure,” Bluford said at the time.

Monroe, who is retired, said he visited Bluford several times at her Kansas City office.

“In no way did I hear any anger from her about” not attending MU. “To me, her reaction was, ‘That is passed. Let’s move forward,’ ” Monroe said.

“Her memory will live on forever, particularly for those of us who knew her,” he said.

Bluford - who has been called the conscience of Kansas City - was recognized in February by the MU Black Studies Department as an “outstanding black Missourian.”

“When we talk about Lucile Bluford in terms of Missouri history and especially Kansas City history, she has been a very prominent community leader over the years,” said MU history professor Robert Weems, who described The Call as an important and influential black newspaper in America.

Bluford joined The Call shortly after graduating from KU and became an editor in 1955 following the death of Chester Franklin, who in 1919 founded what would become one of the nation’s largest black-owned weekly newspapers. She also served as part-owner and publisher.

Bluford was among those who were with then-Vice President Harry Truman at a downtown Kansas City hotel on the night he upset Thomas Dewey to win the presidency in November 1948.

And Cleaver remembered her once scolding another presidential candidate - Jesse Jackson - before a crowd of 7,000 people for visiting Kansas City without first notifying the black media.

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Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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