Wesley A.M.E. Zion Church

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1992

Christopher Perry launched the Philadelphia Tribune in 1884 as a single hand-printed page devoted to improving daily life for Black Americans. From that modest start it grew into an enduring institution and the oldest continuously published Black newspaper in the nation. For generations it chronicled the triumphs, struggles, and demands of Black Philadelphia when few other outlets would.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2018

In 1965, years before the Stonewall uprising, activists staged one of the nation's first LGBT sit-ins at Dewey's, a Philadelphia restaurant that had refused to serve gay and gender-nonconforming customers. Directly inspired by the African American lunch-counter sit-ins of the civil rights movement, the demonstrators occupied the counter until Dewey's backed down and dropped its discriminatory policy. It was a small, early, and largely forgotten victory in the long struggle for equal treatment.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1993

In 1938, amid the injustices of racial segregation, Marion Turner Stubbs, Lela Jones, and nine other African American mothers gathered in Philadelphia to create opportunities their children were denied elsewhere. The group they founded—Jack and Jill of America—organized cultural, social, and educational activities for Black youth, and the Philadelphia chapter was the very first in the nation. From this local beginning grew an organization that spread across the country.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1991

From his Philadelphia home, William Still worked as a key agent of the Underground Railroad, guiding fugitives from slavery toward freedom and carefully recording their names and stories so that separated families might one day reunite. A prosperous coal merchant, he used his standing and resources to advance Black civil rights, helping found the city's first Black YMCA. His meticulous accounts, later published, remain one of the most important firsthand records of the Underground Railroad.