Historic ‘Blue Plaque’ for MLK unveiled: first in U.S. by British Trust known for recognizing Black history

Unitarian Universalist clergy Hannah Capaldi and members of the First Unitarian Church at 2125 Chestnut St. in Philadelphia always “knew” of the connection between their church and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

But for over 70 years, historians, scholars, and even prizewinning biographers of King got the exact date and location wrong of an impactful lecture that took place in 1950 while King was a student at Crozer Theological Seminary in Upland, Delaware County.

“We never wanted to take credit for something as amazing as that,” Capaldi said on Sunday as the Nubian Jak Community Trust, an organization in England known for recognizing Black history, unveiled the very first of its famous Blue Plaques in the United States at the church.

Of King’s visit to their church, she said, “The congregation is just thrilled and honored to know that they sit in the same sanctuary, the same pews to worship each Sunday.”

Philadelphia activist and researcher Patrick Duff recently discovered that it was indeed at First Unitarian that King first heard Howard University president and activist Mordecai Johnson give a lecture about Mahatma Gandhi’s principles that led King to adopt nonviolence as a philosophy in the civil rights movement.

The lectures had been wrongly said to have occurred at the Fellowship House, a nonprofit education center dedicated to interracial and interfaith relations. The group did sponsor Johnson’s lecture but held it at First Unitarian, not at their North Philadelphia rowhouse, because of a fire.

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Nubian Jak Community Trust founder Jak Beula had been planning to place an MLK plaque in the U.S. for a few years. He was initially looking at the home at 753 Walnut St. in Camden where King lived while he was a graduate student at the now-closed Chester County seminary.

That was when he met Duff, whose efforts to place the Camden rowhouse on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places had just been rejected by state officials.

Beula, who attended the unveiling, said learning the truth about the Unitarian Church from Duff made him “very proud to place the first Nubian Jak here, where Martin Luther King strategized, where he developed the formula, the template, for his activism. He changed the trajectory of American history.”

The Trust has installed nearly 80 plaques and two statues across the United Kingdom honoring individuals and events related to Black history, including African Americans who’ve had impacts in England such as Malcolm X and journalist Ida B. Wells.

They hope to place more of their Blue Plaques throughout the United States.