People, Locations, Episodes

Lucile Bluford, Publisher born

Lucile Bluford

Lucile Bluford was born on this date in 1911. She was a Black news publisher and businesswoman.

Lucile Bluford was born in Salisbury, North Carolina. Her father, John Henry Bluford, was a professor at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College. In 1921, when she was 10, and upon the death of his mother, John Bluford accepted a position teaching science at Lincoln High School in Kansas City, Missouri. She attended Wendell Phillips Elementary and Lincoln High School and was exposed to segregated education, as Missouri was a Jim Crow state that adhered to the "separate but equal" doctrine.

Her name became known outside the city when she sued the University of Missouri for denying her entry to its graduate journalism program.  Lincoln University, the Historically Black College or University (HBCU), didn’t have a journalism program, so the University of Missouri was ordered to admit her. Unwilling to do so, the university suspended offering graduate journalism courses to keep her from attending.  Years later, she would receive the University of Missouri’s esteemed Honor Medal and an honorary doctorate.

Bluford joined The Daily World in Atlanta as a reporter in 1932 after graduating from the University of Kansas, the second Black student to major in journalism there.  Best known for her more than 50-year journalism career, Bluford became Kansas City Call editor in 1955 following the death of Chester Franklin, the publisher and editor. At the Call, Bluford led the Kansas City civil rights movement. She made the paper one of national importance to the African American community through journalism.  The Call was a whole different journalistic approach to the world, a fresh view to read.

Bluford was committed to keeping the Call alive in the city's 18th and Vine area after the area’s heyday and before its recent resurgence. When everything went down in the commercial district, the newspaper was the only business that remained open.

Bluford took the responsibility of being a leader in the African American community seriously. When Jesse Jackson ran for president, he came to Kansas City for a campaign speech at the Municipal Auditorium. Bluford was on the upper balcony, and Jackson had finished speaking and begun asking for campaign contributions.  She stood up, saying, “Wait a minute. Wait a minute.” People saw her, and so everybody got quiet. She’s up on the balcony, leans over, and says, “Now, Reverend Jackson, how long did you know you were coming to Kansas City before you came?” He said, ‘Well, it was a campaign stop.’ She said, ‘Is there any reason you didn’t contact the Kansas City Call?’  You could hear a pin drop. Jackson said, “Well, no, ma’am. I apologize.’ And she said, ‘Well, you ought to apologize.” There were 8,000 people there, and she just dressed him down.

Lucile Bluford, 91, editor and publisher of the Kansas City Call and a champion of the civil rights movement, died on June 13, 2003, in Kansas City.

To Become a News Editor & Publisher