A year-long Historic Germantown program initiative, highlighting the hard-working spirit of Germantown’s people throughout its 300 year history

This project has been supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage
through the Heritage Philadelphia Program

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Historic Germantown Presents Forum on
Germantown’s 1928 Negro Achievement Week

Historic Germantown Freedom’s Backyard invites the public to a special forum on Thursday evening, November 19th, “Working Together: When the Harlem Renaissance Came to Germantown,” highlighting a historic local event which few of us today have heard of: the Negro Achievement Week celebration held in Germantown in April 1928. The forum will be held at 7 PM at Center in the Park, in Germantown’s Vernon Park, 5818 Germantown Avenue.

 

Heralded at the time as “The Biggest Event of Its Kind Ever Held in Germantown,” Philadelphia’s Negro Achievement Week was produced by the local YWCA , area schools and local black colleges, after the model introduced and promoted by Howard University professor Carter Woodson in the 1920’s. In 1928, Center in the Park was the site of the Germantown Public Library, itself one of the venues for Negro Achievement Week events.

 

The November 19th forum will include an illustrated overview of the 1928 century celebration, presented by Dr. David W. Young, President of Historic Germantown (HG), after which members of the audience are invited to participate in an open discussion, sharing their impressions and thoughts on the event itself and its legacy. Germantown High School students from the Germantown Speaks project, a complementary oral history program partnership involving Neighborhood Interfaith Movement (NIM), Partners for Sacred Places and others, will be on hand to record audience discussions.

 

“Working Together” is one in a series of forums to be offered by Historic Germantown, in conjunction with its year-long “Germantown Works” project, an initiative supported by the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through the Heritage Philadelphia Program. For more information on the forums, please call the HG program office at 215-844-1683 or contact info@freedomsbackyard.com.

 

Historic Germantown is a consortium of fourteen cultural and historic sites located in Northwest Philadelphia. Our members range from historic houses to an art museum and arboretum. The mission of Historic Germantown is to foster an appreciation of the diverse character and meaning of our cultural heritage in order to preserve and revitalize our community. To this end, we cooperate in providing knowledge and resources to help preserve Germantown’s historic sites, interpret them to the public, and incorporate them into the life of the local community.

 

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Historic Germantown Presents Forum on Activist David Richardson, Jr.’s Legacy

Historic Germantown Freedoms Backyard invites the public to a special forum on Thursday, February 18th entitled, “The Germantown Protest of 1967: The Legacy of David Richardson, Jr.” The forum will take place at 4PM at Germantown High School located at Germantown Avenue and High Street.

 

This program, part of Historic Germantown’s Germantown WORKS project, will examine the legacy of the late David Richardson, Jr., a community activist who became Germantown’s first African American state representative in 1972 at the age of 23. A community activist whose work has profound legacies in the Germantown neighborhood, Richardson led student protests about the teaching of African American history at Germantown High School in 1967 and his record as a legislator included supporting infrastructure improvements to Germantown Avenue going on into 2009.

 

The Forum will include elected representatives, members of Richardson’s family, teachers, and community members recalling participants in the protest, and audience feedback will help to paint a vivid picture of struggles to establish identity using history. Germantown High School students from the Germantown Speaks project, a complementary oral history program partnership involving Neighborhood Interfaith Movement (NIM), Partners for Sacred Places and others, will be on hand to record audience discussions. -Video highlights from previous Germantown Speaks gatherings and Germantown History Seekers projects will also be featured.

 

“The Germantown Protest of 1967” is the second in a series of three public forums to be offered by Historic Germantown, in conjunction with its year-long “Germantown WORKS” project, an initiative supported by the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through the Heritage Philadelphia Program. To find out more information about the forums, contact the HG Program Office at (215) 844-1683.

 

Historic Germantown is a consortium of fifteen cultural and historic sites located in Northwest Philadelphia. Our members range from historic houses to an art museum and arboretum. The mission of Historic Germantown is to foster an appreciation of the diverse character and meaning of our cultural heritage in order to preserve and revitalize our community. To this end, we cooperate in providing knowledge and resources to help preserve Germantown’s historic sites, interpret them to the public, and incorporate them into the life of the local community.