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Title: |
Reverend Bruce Klunder Collection |
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Repository: |
Western Reserve Historical Society
Phone: 216-721-5722 http://www.wrhs.org |
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Creator: |
Klunder, Bruce |
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Dates: |
1964-1974 |
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Quantity: |
0.10 linear feet (1 container) |
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Abstract: |
Bruce Klunder (1937-1964) was a Presbyterian minister and civil rights activist who worked with various student and community groups in Cleveland, Ohio, including the United Freedom Movement. Klunder was accidentally killed in 1964 by a bulldozer while picketing the Lakeview School construction site in an effort to bring attention to school segregation in the Cleveland Public Schools. The collection consists of clippings, correspondence, newsletters, reports and programs relating to the events surrounding Klunder's death. The collection pertains to Klunder's background, religious convictions, and his fight for human rights for the black community in Cleveland. |
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Identification: |
MS 4221 |
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Location: |
closed stacks |
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Language: |
The records are in English |
Reverend Bruce Klunder (1937-1964), a young Presbyterian minister at the Church of the Covenant in Cleveland, Ohio, died during a civil rights demonstration at a Cleveland school construction site on April 7, 1964. Born in Greeley, Colorado, Klunder graduated from Oregon State University in 1958 then received his degree from Yale Divinity School in 1961. Klunder then joined the staff of the Cleveland Student Christian Union as associate executive secretary under Director Robert Clarke. Interested in human rights, Klunder became active in student and community groups, including the United Freedom Movement (UFM), a coalition of over 50 civic, fraternal, social and civil rights organizations formed to bring the civil rights movement to Cleveland, Ohio. In 1963 the UFM turned its attention to the Cleveland school system, charging it with de facto segregation, discrimination in faculty assignments, and segregation in largely white-populated schools receiving African American students from overcrowded African American institutions. On April 7, 1964, Klunder joined fellow UFM members in picketing the Lakeview school construction site and, with three other members of the UFM, entered the area with the intention of blocking the bulldozer. While the other members threw themselves into a muddy ditch in front of the machine, Klunder lay on the ground behind the tractor. In backing up the bulldozer to avoid the demonstrators in front of him, the operator crushed the young minister to death. In the aftermath of the accident, school board members met with city officials in a negotiation that ended with a truce agreement in which the UFM and the school board would each appoint five members to a committee with three outside consultants to review the situation. The truce collapsed when the President of the Cleveland School Board refused to appoint committee members, insisting instead that the board would sit as a committee of the whole. Construction resumed on April 13, and the UFM was ordered to limit the total number of pickets to 10 people or less.
click here to view the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for Bruce Klunder
The Reverend Bruce Klunder Collection, 1964-1974, consists of clippings, correspondence, newsletters, reports, and programs relating to the events surrounding Klunder's death.
The collection primarily pertains to Klunder's background, religious convictions, and his fight for human rights for the African American community in Cleveland, Ohio, during the 1960s.
None.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 4221 Reverend Bruce Klunder Collection, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio
Robert Clarke, 1986.
Processed by Bari Oyler Stith in 1988.