3/5/2008 - In Honor of Black History Month: Dr. Martin Luther King and AFS Driver Lewis M. Purnell

Lewis M. (Skipper) Purnell had been U.S. Chargé d’Affaires at the U.S. Mission in Kingston, Jamaica when the Reverend Dr. King and his wife Coretta visited Jamaica on Sunday, June 20, 1965. Dr. King delivered the valedictory sermon for the 400 plus graduates at the UWI Mona Campus, noting that “The great challenge facing all of us today—is to somehow stand before the opportunities of the moment and face the challenges of the hour with creativity and with commitment and with determination.”

Purnell and Dr. King met the next day, Monday, June, 21, 1965. In a conversation with AFS Archivist Eleanora Golobic forty-two years later, Purnell remembered the “conversation with Dr. Martin Luther King was mostly about Vietnam.”

Purnell, a retired Foreign Service diplomat served as an AFS ambulance driver during World War II. Purnell graduated from John Hopkins University and volunteered with the American Field Service in October of 1942. He served with AFS 485 Ambulance Company in the Middle East, Syria and Italy in 1943-44. He has been injured in Italy on April 16, 1944 and was repatriated to the United States via hospital ship. Purnell took photographs for AFS using Leica and Iconta cameras to capture AFS drivers and civilians in the war-torn Middle East and Italy. His photographic heritage is on deposit at the AFS Archives.

Purnell has been a Foreign Service officer for 30 years before his retirement in the mid -1970’s. He and his wife, Matilda (Til) lived in Burma, Indonesia, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, London, Malaysia, and the Phillippines because of his government work as an “Asian expert” before returning home in 1975. Purnell is a longtime member and advocate for the Delaware Humanities Council, the Historic Records Commission, the Delaware State Review Board for Historic Preservation, the Council of Libraries, the Archeological Society of Delaware, and the League of Women Voters. Purnell was one of the founders of the Friends of Delaware Public Archives and he has been a principal member of the Delaware Heritage Commission. In January 2005 he was honored with the second annual Governor’s Heritage Award by Gov. Ruth Ann Miner for preserving Delaware’s heritage. The Delaware Heritage Commission also named its challenge grant designed to encourage public, individual and private organizations efforts in projects to preserve their history and heritage in Purnell’s honor.