Philadelphia is a town that loves its history, but not every bit of it gets the same amount of attention. More than four decades ago, Louis Massaiah saw a need to explore and celebrate the history and culture of African American and Puerto Ricans communities in the city.
From this insight was born Scribe Video Center, which Massaiah founded in 1982. The center instructs people how to use digital tools for personal expression and for communities to come together to document their lives, ideas and concerns.
This year, Scribe and local partners took an important step. The inaugural North Philadelphia Historical Festival took place at the end of last month, with free events in historic corridors, including Ridge Avenue and North Broad Street.
“It really felt like a festival would be a way to kind of celebrate all the wonderful work of people who have been looking at this land and looking at these communities that are developed,” Massaiah said.
What follows are some vignettes from the festival, which ran July 24-27.
Return of the Freedom Library
One event took place in a white tent outside the Wagner Free Institute of Science in North Philly on Friday, July 25. The event honored the legacy of the Freedom Library, created by Dr. John Churchville in 1964 to share the undertold stories of Black history and literature with the surrounding community.
At the event, fourth- and fifth-grade students of the Jubilee School — a small, community-focused institution in West Philly, founded by history teacher Karen Falcon — presented their stories of the Freedom Library.
The students’ illustration, storytelling and poetry lined the white wall of the tent. Each contribution, many of which are also distributed by a student-run publishing house, helped to tell the stories of people of color in Philadelphia and the social and revolutionary changes that impacted them and the U.S. more broadly in the 19th century.
Among those whose work was shared was Madison Pilgrim, a rising high school senior, who attended Jubilee before the Covid pandemic.
“I was in elementary school and I didn’t even know they published more stories I had written and more drawings I had. I wrote about the Mexican Revolution, the atomic bomb and the AIDS crisis in the ‘80s,” she said.
Pilgrim said she appreciated that her Jubilee experience taught her about history she wouldn’t have known otherwise.
“I took AP history last year and we didn’t talk about the Mexican Revolution at all, and it was a big deal in the U.S.,” she said. “These stories need attention; otherwise, they’re forgotten and no one is passing it down. This gave me a love for history.”
Falcon founded the Jubilee school 47 years ago when she arrived in Philly fresh out of college.
“It was an afterschool reading program. I had a full house just for students who came after school to read, write, and journal,” said Falcon, 75. “I wondered why students were failing in school yet they love learning. It made no sense to me.”
So she started her own program, beginning with preschool and kindergarten. As her own kids grew older, she incorporated third and fourth grades.
“I decided to start a school with that level of learning that could be kept alive,” she said. “It’s contagious, their joy. I love it when they’re so excited about what they learned.”
That joy was apparent during this event, and contagious. Children sharing historical accounts in their words, reciting poetry and dancing brought everyone together in community.
In the front row sat Dr. Walter Palmer, an organizer and activist who founded the Black People’s University in Philadelphia in the 1950s to provide education and support for Black children. Next to him was Robert Kenyatta, the legendary percussionist who later performed his own storytelling song on the congas.
The event gave the students a chance to meet the people behind some of the stories they were telling. It was special for both.
“It keeps me alive, working with young people,” Palmer said. “I started the Black People’s University in 1955. I was training young Black people about Black history and Black culture and civilization that was rooted deep in racism and slavery, and here we are 70 years later and it’s still being perpetuated in another generation.
“This is what education is about, teaching the future generations to carry forward the work of the past and build up.”
Palmer connected the day to his entire life, and the future.
“I was born in 1934, 70 years after the Emancipation Proclamation,” he said. “Always learn the negative experiences, [then] reinterpret and redefine them. Our journey on this earth is liberation, not becoming a stranglehold, beaten down or diminished, but looking forward to the fight. We must get the wake-up call to learn about social work and help others learn who are less fortunate. It’s so important when you advocate for your community.”
Places of Power exhibition
On Saturday July 26, the Places of Power exhibition — a community-based, augmented and virtual reality project celebrating African American diasporas and Puerto Rican culture — took place in the Villa Africana Colobó garden.
The project involved Termite TV, which uses media to tell underrepresented peoples’ stories. In this case, they took part in workshops that allowed long-term residents to share memories and histories of their Latine neighborhood in West Kensington via VR.
Andria Bibiloni, the director of the Norris Square Neighborhood project, and Angel Rosado, a community leader, said they worked on the virtual storytelling series with Termite TV’s Anula Shetty and Michael Kuetemeyer.
“Everyone got to learn about technology to tell their stories and be a part of the project,” Bibiloni said.
The project involved the placement of plaques within the garden. Visitors would download the phone app Artivive and, as they neared a plaque, they’d be able to see the stories and people in the neighborhood come alive on their phone screen.
Rosado, who moved here with his father from Puerto Rico years ago, said the product of the technology was “very cool and beautiful.” He added that he first came to the garden as a volunteer.
“Afterwards they gave me work here and I feel very happy to be here. This isn’t my first time doing a project like this,” he said. “I love teaching people what we have here and understanding more about their home and the gardens. … I love seeing people wonder when they see the gardens and get curious how it gets put together.”
The Villa Africana Colobó gardens have been lovingly tended in Norris Park for more than four decades. They were born from a desire for community.
Back in the ‘80s, local resident Iris Brown organized a group of women, called Grupo Motivos. They started by feeding people at community events. Later, they found naked and abandoned plots in Norris Square and transformed them into gardens that provided fresh produce, as well as the opportunity to share traditional Puerto Rican recipes and stories. Over time, the gardens added an outdoor kitchen, greenery and sunflowers, and even an African hut.
It was a group effort, Brown said.
“I don’t do this alone,” she said. “I love my community. I don’t know anything about carpentry, but we come together and someone always knows something. Whoever can see a tree trunk in a different way and make it useful with purpose.”
Later, Brown came out of retirement to expand the vision for the gardens and to make it an educational learning space for oral history, culture and love for cooking and delicious food.
She sees the gardens, from the beginning, as a lesson in community and optimism.
“What everyone couldn’t realize is that our histories intertwine, we are not so different from each other, each of us has been conquered in one way in history and have found a way to get above that,” she said. “We can never say we cannot do anything. We must find another way.”