LYNN ― Abner Darby met future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall on a warm Texas day in November 1950. Darby was a high schooler and Marshall was a young attorney.
The young man, who would go on to become the executive director of Lynn’s Community Minority Cultural Center for 27 years, was inspired by his encounter with the future judiciary legend, who was visiting the area to argue against racial segregation at the University of Texas in Austin, and Darby was one of 30 students who marched to the Austin courthouse to observe the proceedings.
“He was a handsome man, neatly dressed… He thanked us for our support and warned us to be cautious,” Darby told The Daily Item in 1993. “‘This is just the beginning,” he said.
It certainly was. While Marshall was the one who inspired Darby, the latter man’s legacy is characterized by how he inspired others. Darby and Marshall would cross paths a few more times as the decades went on, as Darby’s involvement with The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was lifelong ― he started by attending youth groups in Texas and ascended to president of the New England Area Conference of Branches for more than a decade. First, he had to move to Lynn.
After a stint in the Armed Forces, Darby, who died in 2008, made the city his permanent home. The first thing he noticed about his new home was that the racism and bigotry he endured in the South was not gone. It had just become covert.
“Discrimination was blatant (in the South),” Darby told the Item in 1983. “In the North, people were nicer about it. They wouldn’t come right out and say ‘you can’t live here’ or ‘you can’t get a job here.’ They would waltz you. But you still wouldn’t get the job or the apartment.”
After a few years of NAACP involvement (serving as president of its North Shore branch from 1961-69), Darby got the opportunity to helm the project that would define his lifetime of service to his community.
As a charter member of Lynn’s Community Minority Cultural Center (CMCC), Darby oversaw a number of initiatives evolve and reach fruition ― such as its credit union, to which fellow co-founders Virginia Barton and Frances Taggart also contributed hundreds of hours.
Today’s executive director of the CMCC, Darrell Murkison, remembers Darby well. Murkison never got the opportunity to work alongside his predecessor, but his interactions with him were many.
“I’ve known him since I was 10 years old,” Murkison recalled. “Me and my cousin would assist him in doing things like moving chairs, preparing food for an event, things like that. He trusted us to do these things, so we were willing to help.”
If a person’s life can be measured by his effect on others, Darby’s effect would be nearly endless. One of his and the CMCC’s first initiatives, recalls Murkison, was to enrich young Lynners with Black culture and history.
“When the CMCC first started (in 1972), its focus was on helping young people in the community,” he said. “They would have different programs down there like African dance and drumming and things of that nature. They would also have a ‘youth week’ parade and dances for young people.”
While keeping an eye on enrichment and empowerment of the city’s Black community, Darby’s focus evolved as the kids who came to the CMCC grew older.
Though he is remembered for his outspoken advocacy toward housing equity and transportation reform, Darby also made strides in integrating the city and state’s workforce, particularly in civil service.
“There were no African Americans working in civil-service jobs like the police and fire department and he was very instrumental in bringing training programs to the CMCC,” Murkison explained. “He would show people how to apply and show them all the things that people just weren’t privy to ― all the information, even to apply for the jobs, (these were) things that were just kept from Black people.”
Murkison not only received training and support from Darby, but the former executive director actually helped with the funding to pay his application fee. In addition to his position as the executive director of the CMCC, Murkison has served on both the police and fire departments in Lynn.
“It’s not just me ― he was able to do that for many other people,” Murkison said.
One of those people is Murkison’s longtime friend, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Chief of Police Kenneth Green. In the spring of 1979, after graduating from Classical, Green was struggling with a handwritten application to the university when Darby stepped in.
“I had this handwritten application and he took a look at it and said, ‘we have to type this up,’ and he made it look nice,” Green remembered. “I was eventually accepted on a football scholarship, and who knows if I would have been accepted if I’d submitted that ragtag application I’d started with.”
When he graduated, and was looking to transition into law enforcement, “I went right back to the CMCC and Mr. Darby helped me with my applications,” Green said.
Though Darby was a demonstrated leader and a beloved pillar of the Lynn community, he never had any political ambitions. In truth, much of his characteristic warmth and approachability came from the fact that he was a regular man.
After the Army, Darby worked as an auto mechanic but languished for 10 years without promotion. As his tenures at NAACP and the CMCC hit their strides, he became the proud owner/operator of two service stations. He was an enthusiastic member of Lynn’s Bethel AME Church, where he sang in the men’s choir, and is also remembered for cooking a mean chili.
Though he never ran for office, Darby didn’t always trust in the powers that be to deliver him his civil rights. He was frustrated and disillusioned when he left Texas, and in the decades that followed, he made no effort to appease white leaders in exchange for minimal change. His legacy, when observed at a distance, is a demonstration of what happens when you quit waiting around and take up the call to heal the world. Like Thurgood Marshall before him, Darby was, simply, a born leader.
