Booker Taliaferro Charles Medford was born in Rutherfordton, North Carolina, in 1906, to the Reverend H. T. Medford, a bishop in the AME Zion Church, and M. E. Medford. He attended high school in Knoxville, Tennessee, and at Dunbar Hill High School in Washington, DC. While in high school in DC, he managed circulation of a local Black weekly publication. Medford attended Livingstone College, where he studied sociology and education and was first tenor in a college vocal quartet, graduating in 1930. In 1931, he was minister at St. Paul’s AME Zion Church in Branford, Connecticut, and entered the Yale Divinity School. In a 1932 note in Medford’s student file, Dean Luther Weigle lauded Medford’s singing:
I have heard Mr. Medford sing the negro spirituals on a number of occassions - in Dwight Memorial Chapel of Yale College, in the Chapel of the Divinity School, and public worship at Church of the Redeemer, and elsewhere. His rendition is admirable. He has a voice well suited to the songs and interprets them with reverence and depth of feeling.
Medford left Yale Divinity School in 1933. He continued his career as a minister in Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, and Alabama, and was noted throughout his career for his musical and dramatic performances. He was married to Eunice Clarissa Medford, and they had four daughters. During World War II, he attended the Army Chaplain School at Harvard University. During the period that his father was a bishop in the AME Zion Church, he was appointed Episcopal Director of Christian Education for the Fifth Episcopal District.
In 1942, serving as a minister in Attleboro, Massachusetts, Medford denounced local white ministers who sought to prevent Black soldiers stationed nearby from attending their churches. In 1949, Medford wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times about the civil rights legislation proposed by President Truman, reflecting that the freedoms affirmed by such legislation also required civic responsibilities.
While serving a church in Staunton, Virginia, Medford was appointed president of the Staunton NAACP. He also was a Mason, a member of the Elks, and a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity. He died in 1970.
Image citation: Detail from Yale Divinity School class photograph from the Yale University Divinity School Memorabilia Collection (RG 53), Yale Divinity Library