Reverend Edgar L. Huff Bridge

The Highland Avenue neighborhood in Niagara Falls, NY is a historic Black community. Since 1906, St. John’s AME Church has greatly shaped this neighborhood and its residents’ lives. 

In 1951, Rev. Edgar L. Huff of Columbus, Georgia was appointed pastor of St. John’s. He quickly became a community leader and activist amongst his congregation and the city he now called home. During the civil rights movement, he used his connections as a member of the city Housing Authority and president of the local NAACP chapter to organize events at his church. 

In the summer of 1963, Huff organized an NAACP rally at St. John’s to protest widespread housing discrimination against African Americans in Niagara Falls. That August, he organized an event at St. John’s on the eve of the now historic March on Washington. The event was a farewell program designed to offer prayers and well-wishes to a delegation of 32 marchers. Afterwards, the marchers took a chartered bus from St. John’s to Washington, D.C. 

In 1965, after police brutally beat civil rights demonstrators as they peacefully crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, Huff was further galvanized to act against racial injustice. He worked with the local NAACP chapter to establish a fund to help the marchers with their medical bills and asked concerned citizens to send their donations to St. John’s.

One week later, he organized an event in which he led over 400 people toward City Hall for a rally. It was snowing but the marchers pressed on, singing “We Shall Overcome” and carrying signs that called for equal rights. Huff spoke at the rally, declaring “that the shame of Selma is the shame of America.” To many, he was considered a local hero and an inspiring figure in league with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the 1970s, the Highland Avenue bridge had fallen into disrepair. The bridge was “one of the only links between the […] neighborhood and the rest of the city.” Although it desperately needed to be fixed to make travels safe for pedestrians and vehicles, the city initially refused to repair the bridge. Huff, along with other community activists, was instrumental in getting the bridge rebuilt.

After serving St. John’s for 30 years, Huff died in 1980. Community activists again successfully organized to rename the Highland Avenue bridge in his honor. At the rededication ceremony, about 100 people gathered against the noisy backdrop of passing traffic and the rumbling Amtrak train beneath. Fittingly, Rev. Huff was known as a builder of bridges “between the races, city government and the community.” 

Hope L. Russell, Ph.D.