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Mayor Wagner Meets with MLK at Gracie Mansion

July 28, 1964 - New York Mayor Robert Wagner and Dr. Martin Luther King met at Gracie Mansion today for renewed talks on ways of preventing further racial explosions in New York City.

The Mayor and the civil rights leader from Atlanta conferred while Harlem leaders were voicing their injured feelings because Dr. King had not met with them before going to see the Mayor.

Two of Dr. King’s announced proposals were believed to have prolonged the meetings at Gracie Mansion.

Dr. King said he would request the creation of a civilian review board to hear complaints of police brutality. He also said he would request the suspension of Lieutenant Thomas Gilligan, the white policeman who shot and killed a 15-year-old youth, James Powell, on July 16 touching off last week’s rioting in Harlem and Brooklyn.

But these two points have met resistance from Police Commissioner Michael Murphy. He has denounced proposals for setting up an independent civilian board as a “divisive tactic” that would undermine his department’s effectiveness.

And he has declined to suspend Gilligan, who is on sick leave while a grand jury investigates the shooting. On both of these positions, Wagner has supported Murphy.

This afternoon, Livingston Wingate, a long-time associate of Rep. Adam Clayton Powell (D-N.Y.), expressed displeasure at the presence of Dr. King in the city.

Following a meeting of representatives of Harlem community groups, Wingate told reporters that the leaders “were made as hell at Mayor Wagner for importing Dr. King from Atlanta to discuss problems of Harlem.”

Also today, the Rev. Alvin Childs, Bishop of the Faith Temple Church of God in Christ and the locality “mayor” of Harlem, said he was disturbed because Dr. King had met with Wagner “without consulting my office and other leaders of our community.”

At a news conference at his church, 1763 Amsterdam Ave., Bishop Childs said: “I cannot envision Dr. King being able to speak on a local level for all Negro people everywhere. I feel the Mayor should have consulted myself and other community leaders if he was really interested in resolving the tense situation in the city.”


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