The Man

Dr. Zirl Augustus Palmer was born in 1920 in Bluefield, West Virginia. He attained a BS in chemistry from Bluefield College and sought to further his studies in the field of pharmacy in West Virginia. But at the time, African Americans were prohibited from attending West Virginia’s public professional schools. Undeterred, Palmer traveled to New Orleans to study pharmacy, and he managed to have the state of West Virginia pay for his train fare and part of his tuition. He earned an MS from Xavier University of Louisiana College of Pharmacy.

Palmer, himself a veteran of the Second World War, married fellow veteran Marian Elspy Sidney of Cartersville, Georgia. She was a graduate of Central State College and enlisted on August 4, 1943 in the Women’s Army Corps, ultimately being honorably discharged with the rank of sergeant. The couple moved to Lexington, Kentucky in 1952. In 1959, Palmer purchased the property on the southeast corner of 5th Street and Chestnut Street, where he established “Palmer’s Pharmacy, Luncheonette, and Doctor’s Office” in 1961. The area was then, as it is today, a predominantly African American neighborhood, part of an area known as the East End.

The East End was an economically diverse place where black-owned businesses thrived and, because of segregation, were necessary to provide goods and services to African American residents. Dr. Palmer’s drugstore was the only black-owned drugstore in town; as a franchise of Rexall, it was the company’s first drugstore in the country to be owned by an African American. Palmer’s business fostered relationships in the community and was a boon to the neighborhood. It offered a convenient location for people to obtain their medications, and its soda fountain and lunch counter served a social function as a gathering place. The building also housed doctors’ offices on the second floor, providing another essential service. Palmer helped students find employment by hiring them to deliver prescriptions or connecting them with opportunities at local businesses.

In addition to bringing his entrepreneurship and professional expertise to the East End, Palmer was actively engaged in the civic affairs of Lexington. He served the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Chamber of Commerce, and Planned Parenthood; he was a member of Main Street Baptist Church, where he conducted a health care program, the Kentucky Human Rights Commission, and the Civic Center Board; he was the first African American member of the Optimist Club and Big Brothers; he chaired the local United Negro College Fund, helped organize Community Action Lexington-Fayette County and the Hunter Foundation for Health Care, and was the first African American to be appointed to the University of Kentucky’s Board of Trustees, which he served from 1972-1979.

Even with numerous civic and philanthropic engagements, the industrious Dr. Palmer opened a second pharmacy on Georgetown Street in the West End Plaza, between Ash Streets and Glen Arvin Avenue. Tragedy struck on September 4, 1968, however, as the blast from a bomb destroyed Palmer’s newest store, along with many others in the plaza. It sent his wife Marian, his four-year-old daughter, Andrea, and him to the hospital after being trapped in the rubble for hours. It took the Palmers several days to recover from their ordeal.

In 1970, an all-white jury deliberated just ninety minutes before finding former Ku Klux Klan grand dragon Phillip J. Campbell guilty of the crime. Following this frightful and trying time, Dr. Palmer sold his businesses and retired to protect the well-being of his family.

With the destruction of Dr. Palmer’s West End Plaza business in 1968, the Palmer Pharmacy Building at 400 East 5th Street is the last building remaining that he built, owned, and managed. What is more, the building is the last of the structures in the city built, owned, and operated by an African American pharmacist during the era of segregation. The two African American pharmacists who preceded Dr. Palmer in Lexington were Dr. William H. Ballard, opening his business in 1893, and Dr. Harriett B. Marble, whose pharmacy was at 118 North Broadway. Dr. Ballard’s house and business buildings at 176-178 Dewees Street were demolished in the 1990s when Dewees Street was appropriated for the widening of Elm Tree Lane. Dr. Marble’s building also no longer stands, as it was razed in an urban renewal effort with the construction Festival Market at the corner of Main Street and Broadway.