During the 29 days of February The School District of Philadelphia will highlight individuals who’ve had an impact on education.
Black History Month
Constance E. Clayton, PhD, EdD, Former School Superintendent
An American educator and civic leader, who served as the first African American and female Superintendent for the School District of Philadelphia.
Constance E. Clayton, PhD, EdD
Thurgood Marshall
As a lawyer, Thurgood Marshall succeeded in having the Supreme Court declared segregated public schools unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). He would later become the first African-American Supreme Court Justice.
Thurgood Marshall
Ruby Bridges
Ruby Nell Bridges Hall is an American civil rights activist. She was the first African-American child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis on November 14, 1960.
Ruby Bridges
Little Rock 9
Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed, Melba Patillo, Gloria Ray, Terrence Roberts, Jefferson Thomas and Carlotta Walls were black students who enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957. Their attendance was a test of a landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional.
Little Rock 9
Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and advisor to multiple presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African American community and of the contemporary black elite.
Booker T. Washington
Jeffrey Canada
Geoffrey Canada is an American educator, social activist and author. Since 1990, Canada has been president of the Harlem Children’s Zone in Harlem, New York, an organization that states its goal is to increase high school and college graduation rates among students in Harlem.
Jeffrey Canada
Joyce Wilkerson
Joyce Wilkerson is one of the first nine members appointed by Mayor Kenney to the Philadelphia Board of Education. Joyce also serves as a mayoral appointee and Chair of the School Reform Commission.
Joyce Wilkerson
James Baldwin
James Baldwin was a writer and activist whose works explore the complexity of race, class and sexual orientation as they relate to living in America. Some of his most notable works include Notes of a Native Son and If Beale Street Could Talk.
James Baldwin
William R. Hite, Jr., PhD
The first African-American male Superintendent for the School District of Philadelphia; With a focus on equity, innovation and quality.
William R. Hite, Jr., PhD
Sandra Dungee Glenn
First female, African-American chair of the School District of Philadelphia’s School Reform Commission. Has been a champion for education students for over 20 years as a Member of the SRC and the CEO of Harambee Charter School.
Sandra Dungee Glenn
Frederick Douglass Patterson
The third president of Tuskegee University and the founder of the United Negro College Fund. At Tuskegee, he founded the School of Veterinary Medicine. He served on President Harry Trumans’ Commission on Higher Education, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Ronald Reagan in 1987.
Frederick Douglass Patterson
Brenda A. Allen, PhD
Current president of Lincoln University, and lifelong educator, Brenda has spent her life improving educational opportunities for students of color. Brenda Allen has held professorship positions at Yale University, Smith College, Brown University, and Winston Salem State University.
Brenda A. Allen, PhD
Mary Jane Patterson
Mary Jane Patterson is the first African-American woman to receive a B.A. degree. She received her degree from Oberlin College and went on to work at Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, before becoming the first black principal at Dunbar High School in Washington D.C.
Mary Jane Patterson
Jahana Hayes
Jahana was recognized as National Teacher of the Year in 2016 for her emphasis on teaching kindness, compassion and customer service as well as traditional subjects. Currently Jahana is serving as the first African-American woman and first African-American Democrat to represent the state of Connecticut in Congress.
Jahana Hayes
Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander
First African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in economics in the United States (1921), and the first woman to receive a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She was the first African-American woman to practice law in Pennsylvania
Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander
Michelle Alexander
A highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, legal scholar and author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness — the bestselling book that helped to transform the national debate on racial and criminal justice in the United States.
Michelle Alexander
Robert Frederick Smith
Is an American billionaire businessman, philanthropist, chemical engineer, and investment banker. He is the founder, chairman, and CEO of private equity firm Vista Equity Partners.
Robert Frederick Smith
Ruth Wright Hayre
Dr. Ruth Wright Hayre became Philadelphia’s first African-American high school principal in 1956. She graduated from West Philadelphia High School at 15 and earned a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania by age 20. Richard Wright Elementary is named after her grandfather.
Ruth Wright Hayre
Walter R. Livingston Jr.
architect and civil activist; Central graduate
Walter R. Livingston Jr.
Dr. Jami Valentine
Was the first African American woman to graduate with a PhD in physics from Johns Hopkins University. She created the website AAWIP.com, which celebrates African American Women in Physics; Dobbins graduate.
Dr. Jami Valentine
Kiara Butler
Developed Diversity Talks in 2017, a Rhode Island-based program empowering pupils to improve their educators’ cultural competence. 9th- to 12th-graders become part of a task force that facilitates conversation-based workshops for adult professional development on topics such as power privileges, microaggressions and race.
Kiara Butler
Brandon Fleming
Is an award-winning educator, Assistant Debate Coach at Harvard University and Founder/CEO of the Harvard Diversity Project, a program that the Harvard Debate Council would adopt as its subsidiary, enrolls Atlanta high schoolers of color into Harvard’s summer residency program.
Brandon Fleming
Molefi Kete Asante
Is a professor and philosopher, who created the country’s first African-American studies Ph.D. program at Temple University in 1987.
Molefi Kete Asante
Edmund Gordon
Is a professor of psychology and was the founder of the federal Head Start program which promotes the school readiness of children from low-income families through agencies in their local community.
Edmund Gordon
Inez Beverly Prosser
Was the first African-American woman to earn a doctorate in psychology, her dissertation documented the psychological harm from racism to Black children learning in integrated schools.
Inez Beverly Prosser
Septima Poinsette Clark
A black American educator and civil rights activist. Clark developed the literacy and citizenship workshops that played an important role in the drive for voting rights and civil rights for African Americans.
Septima Poinsette Clark
Toni Morrison
An American novelist, essayist, book editor, and college professor. The critically acclaimed Song of Solomon brought her national attention and won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Toni Morrison
Alain LeRoy Locke
A Philadelphia native and Harvard graduate, was the first African American to win a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship in 1907. Known as the “Dean” or “Father of the Harlem Renaissance”, was an educator, writer, and philosopher.
Alain LeRoy Locke
Shirley Chisholm
The first African American woman in Congress (1968) and the first woman and African American to seek the nomination for president of the United States from one of the two major political parties (1972).
Shirley Chisholm