John Taylor III, Esq.

Third-Generation Church Hill Resident
B. 1955

I’m one of six kids—I’m a triplet. I was brought home from the hospital to this house. I have a 100-plus year history in Richmond—I’m a third generation of black businessmen. My grandfather started a coal and ice business—coal for furnaces and fires, and ice for the old refrigerators. I was born February 6, 1955. Brown vs. Board of Education was December 1954. My father taught me what he knew, which was stay in your place. Don’t go across town, don’t talk to white people, stay in the community. That’s a safe place.

My father graduated Armstrong [High School], got drafted, served World War II over in the Philippines, and went to Virginia Union [University] as a physics major on the G.I. Bill. He went into the television repair business.

Our family believed in education. I’ve got a younger sister that’s a lawyer, another sister who went to Princeton and is a lawyer. Another sister who’s a social worker and a brother who’s an actor. I’m a lawyer. When I set up my business in Church Hill, my father was so pleased.

In the early ‘60s, this corner store here was Burn’s Department Store. I came home one day, and there were 30 people picketing-my aunt Jeanette, my aunt Maggie and my aunt Mary. “Mama, what is happening?” “Those stores don’t hire black people.”

There is a lack of dialogue that begets some clashes. Is our community going to continue to be neighborly? I am hoping that our future will be a Church Hill of many cultures. Not black culture, not white culture, but many cultures.