Reflections

Chester Wickwire was born in Nebraska, in 1913. He was raised in rural Colorado where he received a very fundamental background. During the 1940's he left for the east coast and attended Yale Divinities School. It was here that he came down with polio, which resulted in a thirteen month stay in a local pauper's hospital; an experience which he accredited as providing him with a broader perspective on the world. In 1953, after graduating from the Divinity School, he was hired as the Executive Secretary of the Levering Hall YMCA, located on the Johns Hopkins campus. During his long stay at the YMCA (and later Hopkins), Chester became involved in countless activities both on campus and in the city of Baltimore, changing the face of the campus and the city as we know it.

One of his chief concerns was bringing an end to racial segregation in Baltimore and at Hopkins. In 1959 he organized the first integrated concert to be held in Baltimore. Held at the 5th regiment armory, the concert featuring jazz legends Maynard Ferguson and Dave Brubeck, among other. He continued to organize concerts at Hopkins and his office was one of the only organizations to bring cultural events to campus. He brought such performers as Duke Ellington, Nina Simone, Charlie Mingus, Simon and Garfunkel, Frank Zappa, Joan Baez, The Mammas and The Pappas, and Ravi Shankar.

He also organized a series of speakers, making sure to feature both liberal and conservative views. He continued to invite leftist speakers to campus even throughout the McCarthy era, during which conservative members of the Hopkins Board of Trustees and the YMCA's Board of Managers threatened to accuse him of being a communist. In 1966 he invited Bayard Rustin, the organizer of the 1963 march on Washington, to speak on campus. Rustin presence incited protests from segregationalists, which led to the Ku Klux Klan burning a cross on campus, and sparked outrage among many campus leaders, including Hopkins president Milton S. Eisenhower. Despite set backs such as this, Chester continued to push for a wide range of both conventional and controversial speakers.

But his vision was not simply confined to Johns Hopkins. He also worked tirelessly to improve the city of Baltimore and in doing so, he encourage Hopkins students to become more involved with the community. In 1958 he started the Tutorial Project, in which Hopkins Students volunteered to help tutor Baltimore's youth. This project has managed to survive for nearly 50 years and is still in existence today (see link on left menu).

In the mid 60's the YMCA began talks of removing itself from campus. The conservative campus leaders saw this as their chance to finally rid themselves of Chester. When word got out of their intentions, however, students started a petition to keep him on staff. Within two days it had been signed by over 90% of the student population. His support, however, was not limited to students. Leaders of the Black Nationalist Headquarters also called student leaders and offered to burn the campus down should Chester be fired. Through his work with community organizations, Chester came to occupy a place of high respect amongst community members. This respect helped him to become the first white leader of the Black Ministerial Alliance in Baltimore, and, in the spring of 1970, when Police were searching for members of the Baltimore Black Panthers, they agreed to surrender only to Chester Wickwire