They Paved The Way (4)
This series takes a historical look at several African Americans from the past who were influential during their time. While there were many involved in a variety of issues, time and space will not permit us to list all of them. However, we have selected a few “very” influential individuals and we will share their accomplishments with you as this series leads up to the 2011 Most Influential African Americans in Philadelphia edition of the Tribune Magazine.
Rev. Leon H. Sullivan’s business plan, job centers still have impact today
This 6-foot-4 giant of a man had a voice that resonated so much that he was often referred to as the “Lion from Zion.” In his book “Build Brother Build,” Leon Howard Sullivan speaks of growing up poor in Charleston, W.Va., and being raised by his grandmother. His first personal experience with racism was being denied the right to sit down to order a soda in a local store. He decided then to work toward equality and remained committed to that goal his entire life
He attended West Virginia State College on a basketball scholarship. Always active, he was impressed by a speech at an NAACP event given by Adam Clayton Powell; Powell then invited Sullivan, who was studying at Union Theological Seminary at the time, to become assistant pastor at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. Sullivan was also mentored by the great union organizer A. Phillip Randolph, who had the vision for the first March on Washington in 1941 to eliminate job discrimination in Army and Navy industrial installations. (The march was called off a few days before its scheduled start because President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, which outlawed such discrimination.)
Sullivan came to Philadelphia in 1950 to pastor Zion Baptist Church and started working to find jobs for youth and get them off the street corners. He helped establish the Citizens Committee Against Juvenile Delinquency, which created a massive organization of community volunteers that worked to not only help prevent juvenile delinquency, but also tackled problems of housing, employment and other issues confronting the Black community.
In 1960, Sullivan organized 400 African-American ministers and they initiated the “selective patronage” campaign (it was illegal to restrict trade). Tastykake was the first company to which the ministers presented “reasonable demands.” The company resisted for a while but finally gave in to the demands because they were losing money. Twenty-nine companies hired or promoted Black Philadelphians between 1960 and 1963, resulting in some 2,000 skilled jobs.
As more and more African Americans obtained jobs, companies began to complain that they weren’t skilled enough for some of the positions. Thus, Sullivan saw the need for job training, and Opportunities Industrialization Centers (OIC) was born. The first OIC opened in an old abandoned jailhouse at 19th & Oxford streets with thousands of people witnessing this new venture.
As he continued on his crusade of “racial economic emancipation,” Sullivan implemented the “10-36 Plan.” He asked 50 member of his congregation to donate $10 per month for 36 months to an unrestricted cooperative program. Two hundred members responded immediately and in a couple of years, there were 400 more members. In 1964, they purchased a $75,000 apartment building under the aegis of Zion Investment Associates. In 1965, they broke ground for Zion Gardens, a million dollar garden apartment complex, which, at the time, was the first of its kind and size in Philadelphia history to be developed and owned by African Americans.
In 1967, the group ground for a $2 million shopping center with a 20-year, million-dollar lease with the A&P food store chain — which marked A&P’s largest agreement ever made with a Black organization in the history of America. The deal also mandated that all chain establishments have Black management.
Continuing on the road to economic emancipation, Zion established the Entrepreneurial Training Center, National Economic Development Center, Progress Aerospace Enterprises, Progress Garment Manufacturing Enterprises & Ten Thirty-Six Fashions and Progress Stores. The “10-36 Plan” eventually grew to include more than 3,000 shareholders.
Leon H. Sullivan’s legacy is manifested by the hundreds of thousands that have attended and graduated from OICs throughout the world; the buildings owned by Progress Investment Associates; the newly-renovated Progress Plaza; and the thousands that have benefited from programs he initiated. Sullivan paved the way for today’s most influential African Americans in Philadelphia.
They Paved the Way
This series takes a historical look at several African Americans from the past who were influential during their time. While there were many involved in a variety of issues, time and space will not permit us to list all of them. However, we have selected a few “very” influential individuals and we will share their accomplishments with you as this series leads up to the 2011 Most Influential African Americans in Philadelphia edition of the Tribune Magazine.
Robert Nix Sr. and Jr. made family name synonymous with ‘civil rights’
Robert N.C. Nix Sr. (August 9, 1898–June 22, 1987) and Robert N.C. Nix Jr. (July 13, 1928–August 23, 2003) represented a family of influence in Philadelphia and in national politics. Both were political firsts in state and national political positions. Both practiced law, and both are alumni of the University of Pennsylvania School of Law. Both were advocates for civil rights.
Born in Orangeburg, S.C., the son of a former slave who became dean of South Carolina State College, Robert Nelson Cornelius Nix Sr. graduated from Townsend Harris High School in New York City. He then went on to graduate from Lincoln University (1921) and received a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He formed a law practice with former college roommate, E. Washington Rhodes (former publisher of The Philadelphia Tribune).
Nix Sr. was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, 2nd Congressional District in 1958. Thus, he became the first African-American congressman from Pennsylvania. He was re-elected 10 times. He worked for passage of the landmark legislation promoting the American Civil Rights Movement and privately worked to prevent the House from denying Adam Clayton Powell his seat in 1967.
A prominent figure in Pennsylvania law and public service, Robert N.C. Nix Jr. was the first African American to be elected to statewide office in Pennsylvania when he was elected to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and the first African-American chief justice of any state’s highest court, serving in that capacity from 1984 to 1996.
He was a graduate of Central High School, valedictorian of Villanova University and earned an MBA at Temple in addition to graduating from Penn’s School of Law.
Nix Jr. joined his father’s law firm as a partner, Nix, Rhodes and Nix, where he gained a reputation as a civil rights advocate. He was an active member of the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Civil Rights (1963) where he raised questions about racial discrimination in city government hiring and pushed for action against slumlords.
In 1967, he was elected judge to the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. Nix Jr. was appointed associate justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court by Governor Milton Shapp in 1971 and elected the following year. From 1991 to 1992 he was president of the National Conference of Chief Justices.
Justice Nix had a reputation as a voice for individual rights, leading the court to interpret the Pennsylvania Constitution to ensure more individual rights than the U.S. Constitution, especially in areas of search and seizure and sovereign immunity. He was an early voice against prosecutors using their power to exclude African Americans from juries.
Pope John Paul II inducted him as a Commander Knight in the Order of St. Gregory the Great.
Some of his community and civic activities included membership in the NAACP Board of Directors, Germantown Boys Club, Pennsylvania Electoral College, President’s Committee on Civil Rights and Omega Psi Phi Fraternity. He retired in 1996, two years prior to mandatory retirement.
A visible testament to Robert N.C. Nix Sr.’s legacy and influence is The Robert N.C. Nix Federal Building at Philadelphia’s 9th and Market streets that is named in his honor. Robert N.C. Nix Sr. and Robert N.C. Nix Jr. paved the way for today’s most influential African Americans.
They Paved the Way
This series takes a historical look at several African Americans from the past who were influential during their time. While there were many involved in a variety of issues, time and space will not permit us to list all of them. However, we have selected a few “very” influential individuals and we will share their accomplishments with you as this series leads up to the 2011 Most Influential African Americans in Philadelphia edition of the Tribune Magazine.
To say that Sam Evans was a man who wore many hats is definitely an understatement.
Leader of leaders. Power broker. Impresario. Godfather. Political patriarch. Rainmaker.
Human rights activist. Organizer. Friend. Mentor. Businessman. Tough taskmaster.
All these and more were the phrases and words used to refer to Samuel London Evans, this life-long Democrat who never held an elective office but wielded significant influence on hundreds of politicians and leaders and countless thousands of individuals.
Born just 37 years after slavery ended, Sam Evans had witnessed five lynchings by the age of nine. He passed in 2008 at the age of 105 and lay in state at City Hall, where hundreds visited to pay their respects.
W. Wilson Goode, Philadelphia’s first Black mayor, noted that he owed his rise to Evans, who engineered a deal when Bill Green was running for mayor in 1979. “I stand here as a former mayor and former managing director because of the work of Samuel London Evans.”
Born in Florida, Evans moved to Philadelphia at the age of 16. He gained a respect for classical music at his first job with the Stark Piano Company as a teenager. This, he parlayed into producing major concerts at the Academy of Music-featuring world-class performers as Marcel Marceau and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 1936, he formed the Philadelphia Youth Movement and with a slogan of “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” he organized picket lines of up to 100 youth in front of stores on Columbia Ave. (Cecil B. Moore Ave.) that didn’t hire Black people.
Evans organized Philadelphia’s 42,000-plus contingent to the historic March on Washington in 1963.
President Jimmy Carter’s White House Daily Diary of Feb. 17, 1978 indicates that he met with Evans and Martha “Bunny” Mitchell to “discuss his (Evans) suggestions for improving the administration’s “effectiveness.”
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed Evans to the U.S. Physical Fitness Commission (1940) and he was appointed by Philadelphia Mayor James Tate as chairman of the Philadelphia Anti-Poverty Action Committee and he was selected as the city’s Czar of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty.
Evans founded the American Foundation for Negro Affairs (AFNA) in 1968 to provide opportunities for young African Americans. His obituary notes that AFNA mentored more than 20,000 students including 800 doctors, 700 lawyers and 5,000 college graduates.
Sam Evans paved the way for today’s Most Influential African Americans in Philadelphia.
They Paved the Way
This series takes a historical look at several African Americans from the past who were influential during their time. While there were many involved in a variety of issues, time and space will not permit us to list all of them. However, we have selected a few “very” influential individuals and we will share their accomplishments with you as this series leads up to the 2011 Most Influential African Americans in Philadelphia edition of the Tribune Magazine.
Eugene Washington Rhodes was publisher of the Philadelphia Tribune when he died in 1970; he had also served as editor and general manager.
Rhodes graduated cum laude from Lincoln University in 1921 and received his law degree from Temple. He married Bertha Perry, the daughter of Tribune founder Christopher J. Perry.
As noted in “African American Business Leaders: A Biographical Dictionary” (Ingham and Feldman, 1994), during Rhodes’ administration the paper was referred to as “a bastion of economic and political conservatism and was persistent in advocacy for the advancement of African Americans.”
During the period of the Great Depression, the Tribune served Philadelphia and the region as the voice for Black people, and later launched campaigns for the appointment of a Black member on the Board of Education, the election of a Black City Council member and the election of a Black judge.
He was the first African American appointed to the Pennsylvania Parole Board, was president of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, chairman of the State Commission to Study the Conditions of the Urban Population, a member of the County Board of Examiners, a director of the NAACP for many years and a member of the board of the Philadelphia State Hospital.
President Calvin Coolidge appointed Rhodes, one of the city’s most prominent Republicans, to be assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He was elected as president of the National Bar Association and served in that capacity from 1933 to 1935. He was elected as state Rep. of the Sixth Legislative District in 1938. Rhodes also founded the Tribune Charities that sponsored scholarships, award programs, fashion shows and other activities, and served as treasurer until his death.
The establishment of E. Washington Rhodes Middle School in North Philadelphia and the fact that The Philadelphia Tribune is the country’s oldest, continuously published newspaper reflecting the African-American experience are testaments to E. Washington Rhodes’ legacy. E. Washington Rhodes paved the way for today’s “Most Influential African Americans in Philadelphia.”