Taylor, Walter (1917?-1984)
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Walter Scott Taylor (1916–1984) was a minister, civil-rights leader, publisher, and politician whose career bridged the pulpit, the streets, and City Hall during one of Englewood’s most turbulent eras of racial change.
Born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, Taylor was educated at Gammon Theological Seminary in Atlanta and later earned a master’s degree in religious education from New York University. After serving in several southern congregations, he moved north and settled in Englewood in 1952, where he became pastor of Galilee United Methodist Church, a position he would hold for more than three decades. Under his leadership, Galilee emerged as both a spiritual anchor and a civic hub for Black residents navigating segregation, housing discrimination, and unequal schooling in a predominantly white suburb.
By the mid-1950s, Taylor had become a prominent figure in local and regional civil-rights organizing. He served for seven years as president of the Bergen County branch of the NAACP, played a key role in legal challenges to discriminatory school zoning, and was a leading voice in efforts to integrate Englewood’s public schools and expand access to public housing. His activism combined moral persuasion, legal pressure, and institutional negotiation—an approach shaped by his identity as a Methodist minister as much as by his political instincts.
Taylor was also a founder and publisher of The Torch-Bearer, a Black-owned community newspaper that documented discrimination in northern New Jersey while amplifying local Black voices often ignored by the mainstream press. Through the paper, he articulated a vision of civil rights rooted in coalition-building, democratic process, and sustained civic engagement.
During the early 1960s, Taylor emerged as one of the principal leaders of the Englewood Movement, a broad coalition formed to confront racial discrimination in housing, employment, and education. While he worked closely with attorney Paul Zuber, the movement’s most visible and confrontational figure, Taylor represented its more moderate wing. He supported direct action and mass mobilization but was openly uneasy with Zuber’s endorsement of militant tactics and rhetoric, fearing they could fracture interracial alliances and undermine long-term institutional gains. This ideological tension—between moral suasion and militancy—shaped the movement’s internal dynamics and reflected larger debates within the northern civil-rights struggle.
Taylor’s stature in the community eventually translated into electoral success. In 1971, he won a closely contested three-way race to become Englewood’s first Black mayor, taking office in 1972. He served until 1975, governing during a period marked by intense debates over housing integration, municipal services, and the city’s changing racial and economic landscape. Even after leaving office, he remained an influential public voice, including on international issues, notably defending the rights of Libyan diplomats to reside in Englewood during a highly charged controversy in the early 1980s.
Rev. Taylor died of cancer in 1984 at Englewood Hospital at the age of 67. He was remembered as a bridge-builder—firm in his opposition to racism, deeply committed to civil rights, yet consistently seeking change through institutions, dialogue, and democratic pressure rather than confrontation alone. His legacy endures in Englewood’s political history, its religious institutions, and the generations of activists shaped by his insistence that justice and community stability need not be opposing goals.
He married Odella Wynkle. He had three children, Walter Taylor Jr., Mary Overton, and Susie England.Toolen, Tom. "500 mourn Rev. Walter Taylor." The Record, 21 June 1984, p.C-15.
Corcoran, David. "Two-Year Rise to Top Surprises Mayor-Elect." The Record, 4 Nov. 1971, p.C-3.
