Bruce W. Klunder

In 2013, the Stephen E. Howe Elementary School on Lakeview Road, whose construction sparked the protests, was torn down and long-time Cleveland residents were interviewed about its history. Rev. E Theophilus Caviness of the Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church was at the scene in 1964; he told The Plain Dealer: "Every time I pass that school, it's sacred ground. It's a sacred location to all of us who were here and saw what the struggle was all about."

Reverend Bruce W. Klunder (July 12, 1937 – April 7, 1964) was a Presbyterian minister and civil rights activist, born in Colorado, United States. He died when he was run over by a bulldozer while protesting the construction of a segregated school in Cleveland, Ohio. Klunder graduated in science from Oregon State University in 1958. While attending the school, he met his future wife, Joanne Lehman. The couple married December 22, 1956. He went on to earn his Bachelor of Divinity from Yale Divinity School in 1961. After college, Klunder and his wife moved to Cleveland where he was hired as assistant executive secretary of the Student Christian Union at Western Reserve University. He quickly became involved in the city's civil rights fight. He had a passionate interest in civil rights, headed the local chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and led a restaurant sit-in in Sewanee, Tennessee, in 1962. He and his wife had two young children at the time.