Surfing through the Telfair Museum of Art's website, Chauncey Mayfield, president and CEO of real estate investment firm MayfieldGentry Realty Advisors LLC, found a photograph of his father with Andrew Young and Hosea Williams waiting for Martin Luther King Jr.
His father, B. Clarence Mayfield, was a civil rights attorney in Savannah, Ga., where the younger Mr. Mayfield grew up. The photo was taken in January 1964 by Frederick C. Baldwin, a photographer then working for National Geographic.
Chauncey Mayfield contacted Mr. Baldwin and they became friends over the telephone. Mr. Baldwin eventually gave Mr. Mayfield the original photo.
But he wanted more.
Mr. Mayfield — an active supporter of the Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum in Savannah — wanted to buy Mr. Baldwin's entire collection of photos taken of the civil rights movement in Savannah. “The museum had hopes and dreams to have the Baldwin Collection,” he said in an interview.
After a few months of negotiations, the Detroit-based real estate investment executive managed to secure the collection for the museum. On Nov. 1, the collection was unveiled at the 3rd Annual Founders Honor Banquet at the musuem, and Mr. Mayfield and Mr. Baldwin met face to face for the first time.
