The ninth annual Philadelphia Legacies Portrait & Community Awards celebrates local standouts

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By Constance Garcia-Barrio

The ninth annual Philadelphia Legacies Portrait & Community Awards, held this year on September 7 at the Taj Mahal Philadelphia, located at 2613 W. Hunting Park Ave., will remind city residents of the grit and gains of local civil rights activists and sports figures.

Stephen Satell, founder of Bridging Worlds Mentor Program, launched the annual event 2016 to showcase “Philadelphians’ inventiveness and their unique place in our nation’s history,” he said.

For example, Satell points out that almost a century before Rosa Parks ignited the Montgomery, Alabama, bus desegregation boycott of 1955-1956, Black Philadelphians went to court and integrated the city’s horse-drawn street cars in 1867.

Satell also has speakers who present talks in Philadelphia schools, and he leads a mentoring program that puts high school students in touch with college students who help prime the latter for collegiate success.

In addition, Satell conducts tours that include such sites as West Philadelphia’s Paul Robeson House.

This year’s portrait subjects include late activists Samuel L. Evans, Cecil B. Moore, and Leon H. Sullivan, as well as educator and advocate Bernard C. Watson. Marquee names in basketball, Wali Jones and Phil Martelli, will also be honored.

Florida native Samuel L. Evans, born in 1902, came of age around 1919, the same year in which the “Red Summer” race riots razed more than three dozen African American communities in the U.S. Perhaps experiencing the violence of that time fueled his drive to excel, and to bring other Black people along with him.

Evans arrived in Philadelphia at age 16, a shrewd youth with the taste of having to work 15 hours a day for 15 cents still in his mouth. He is also said to have developed an appreciation for classical music while working for a piano company. In time, he became a producer of concerts at the Academy of Music.

Evans’ social justice work began earnestly when he formed the Philadelphia Youth Movement in 1936. The organization conducted “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” protests along the Columbia Avenue business corridor in North Philadelphia, which had no Black employees.

His strategizing inspired thousands of Philadelphians to participate in the 1963 “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.” Evans also founded the American Foundation for Negro Affairs in 1968 to provide opportunities for youths of African heritage. He lived to age 106 and dubbed himself “the oldest Democrat in Philadelphia.”

Cecil B. Moore could have channeled Evans’s energy from the Columbia Avenue campaign.

The story goes that Moore, born in tiny Dry Fork, West Virginia in 1915, got into an altercation in his hometown with a white policeman who called him “ni**er.” Moore beat the officer up, fled town, and joined the Marines.

In the 1950s, Moore settled in North Philadelphia. He began working in a liquor store by day to support his family while studying law at Temple University by night. Soon after graduating, he became known as a defense attorney who charged his low-income clients little or nothing.

In the 1960s, Moore fought to desegregate Philadelphia’s building trades unions. Re-elected president of the Philadelphia Branch NAACP in 1965, Moore was inspired to spearhead desegregation programs throughout the city, including Girard College. According to the will of the school’s founder, banker and opium trader Stephen Girard, Girard College was open to white boys only. Moore and other fellow activists eventually won, and the school was desegregated in 1968.

“I said ‘Let’s fight the damn system,’” he said. “I don’t want no more than the white man got, but I won’t take no less.”

Examples of the beautiful portraits of the 2019 Legacy awardees: the late great Wilt Chamberlain, coach Professor Fran Dunphy, astronomer Derrick Pitts, engineer Steve Cox, and science fiction writer Sam Delaney.
Photo courtesy Philadelphia Legacies

Moore would surely be pleased that North Philadelphia’s Broad Street Subway station, not to mention a street, is named in his honor.

Fellow West Virginian, Rev. Dr. Leon H. Sullivan, also gained fame for accomplishments centered in North Philadelphia.

Born in 1922 in Charleston, West Virginia, Sullivan — who was called to ministry at age 18 — came into his own as pastor of Zion Baptist Church, located on Broad Street in North Philadelphia. During the 1950s and ‘60s, he grew the church’s membership from 600 to 6,000.

But Sullivan did more than pray. In 1958, he joined other pastors in organizing a boycott of employers who discriminated against Black Americans. A proponent of self-help, Sullivan founded the Opportunities Industrialization Center (OIC) of America in 1964, which offered job training and placement. In 1968, Sullivan launched Progress Plaza on North Broad Street, the nation’s first Black-owned shopping center.

Sullivan leveraged his position on the board of directors of General Motors Corporation, South Africa’s largest employer in the 60s, to oppose discrimination in that country.

The fourth awardee, Bernard Watson, Sr., born in 1928, grew up in Gary, Indiana, a town whose biggest employer in his youth was U.S. Steel. At 16, Watson began working in the steel mill in summers to save up for college.

While attending the University of Indiana in 1949, a white policeman stopped Watson on the street and held a gun to his head because of his civil rights activities.

“I was never afraid of dying again,” Watson once said. “I began to form my own philosophy about standing up for things.”

After serving in the Korean War, Watson earned a master’s degree in education administration and later a doctorate in that field.

Watson’s star rose fast after he arrived in Philadelphia in 1967. He served as a district representative in the School District of Philadelphia, moved on to a full professorship in the Department of Education at Temple University, and in 1981, became president and chief executive officer of the William Penn Foundation, a nonprofit, private, grantmaking organization.

Today, at age 96, Watson, an author and recipient of numerous awards, still spreads good words as a radio program guest.

Awardee and native Philadelphian Wali Jones, 82, grew up in a family of activists and stellar basketball players.

A round ball whizz himself, Jones honed his skills on Overbrook High School’s formidable team, then with Villanova University’s hard-charging players. Those “take-no-prisoners” games paid off. Jones was a rookie with the NBA’s Baltimore Bullets in 1965, then later joined the Sixers.

If basketball was in Jones’ genes — his brothers were Public League standouts — so was activism. During his NBA career, Jones led fellow pros in Concerned Athletes in Action, a program in which they mentored youth. Jones also had a key role in Shoot For Stars, a program that instilled discipline and commitment in Philadelphia youth. In 2023, the community honored his work with a mural featuring Jones. More than 100 people witnessed its dedication, including Jones’s 106-year-old father, Ernest “Pop” Jones.

Also honored is legendary basketball coach Phil Martelli, now age 70. Martelli played in an NCAA tournament in the 1970s as a point guard in Widener University’s team. There, he set a record for career assists.

In 1985, Martelli distinguished himself as a coach with the Catholic League before becoming an assistant coach with St. Joseph’s University’s Hawks. In 1995, he became St. Joe’s head coach, and that year, the Hawks made it to the NCAA’s Sweet Sixteen. During Martelli’s 24 years as head coach, he led St. Joe’s teams to six more NCAA tournaments.

Martelli, author of the book “Don’t Call Me Coach,” founded the Philadelphia Chapter of Coaches Against Cancer, which supports healing and patient advocacy.

True to family tradition, Martelli’s sons have also become outstanding coaches of college basketball teams.

“The whole purpose of the celebration (the Philadelphia Legacies Portrait & Community Awards) is to create positive energy,” Satell said.

The ninth annual Philadelphia Legacies Portrait & Community Awards are sponsored in part by Independence Blue Cross Foundation, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 98, Progressive Business Publications, Philadelphia Business and Technology Center, The Philadelphia Sunday SUN, Seligsohn Family Foundation, St. Joseph’s University, Temple University and Villanova University.

The program begins with a networking reception at 4:30 p.m. and ends with entertainment by the legendary Intruders. For more information, visit http://philadelphialegacy.org or call: (215) 432-2898.

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