Segregation at St. John’s Hospital

Vigil & Victory

ESCRU organized a vigil outside St. John’s Hospital in early July 1962 that was attended by 150 people and included representatives from local chapters of the Congress on Racial Equality and the NAACP. The accompanying publicity led the City Commission on Human Rights to launch an investigation and to ask the Presiding Bishop to intervene. Faced with another planned protest at the hospital and the diocesan offices on July 11, Bishop DeWolfe directed the hospital to amend its policies and finally offered to meet with the diocesan clergy to open up what was now a much broader discussion of exclusion and race. [Sources]