A Timeline of African American History in Philadelphia

Nov 06, 2025 0

Philadelphia boasts a rich and complex history of African Americans, playing a pivotal role in the fight for civil rights, abolition, and the development of Black culture. This timeline explores the key events, individuals, and milestones that have shaped the African American experience in Philadelphia, highlighting the community's resilience, activism, and contributions to the city and the nation.

The African American Museum in Philadelphia (AAMP) was the first major museum of African American history and culture established by an American municipality.

Early History and the Colonial Era

1639: Enslaved Africans arrive in the area that became Philadelphia, brought by European settlers.
1688: Garret Hendericks, Francis Daniel Pastorius, along with brothers Derick op de Graeff and Abraham op De Graeff protested the enslavement of African people by their Quaker brothers and sisters in the Pennsylvania colony.
1696: George Keith and fellow Quakers of the Monthly Meeting in Philadelphia published An Exhortation & Caution To Friends Concerning Buying or Keeping of Negroes, declaring slavery contrary to Christian principles.
1726: The Pennsylvania Assembly passed a “Black Code” that required a 30-pound surety bond for manumission, forbade intermarriage between white European and African American people, and restricted the freedom of enslaved and free people to travel, drink liquor, or carry on trade.
1750s-1760s: The slave trade increased due to a shortage of European workers, with approximately one to five hundred Africans sent to Philadelphia each year.
1759: The Associates of Dr. Bray established a Negro School for free and enslaved children in the city.
1765: There were roughly fifteen hundred Black Philadelphians; of these, one hundred were free.
1775: The Pennsylvania Abolition Society was founded by white Quakers and eventually became a biracial organization.
1780: A policy of gradual emancipation was instituted in Pennsylvania, the first in North America.

The 19th Century: Abolition, Activism, and Institution Building

1787: The Free African Society was established by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones.
1792: Bishop Absalom Jones founded African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, the nation’s first Black Episcopal church.
1794: St. Thomas Episcopal Church (Jones) on 5th Street near the State House and Bethel Church (Allen) at 6th and Lombard Streets were established this year after Black people left St.
1796: Zoar United Methodist Church was established (administered by St. George's Methodist Church) separate but still desiring to stay under Methodism.
1800: The population of people of African descent reached about 6,800 out of a total population of 81,009.
1807: The Act of the Abolition of the Slave Trade went into effect prohibiting the slave trade in the British Empire.
1811: Most of the Black population in Philadelphia were living as freemen and women.
1817: Robert Finley, a Washington, DC Presbyterian minister, established the Colonization of Free People of Color of America, as known as the American Colonization Society.
1820: The Philadelphia School Board of Education established the Lombard Street School, the first co-educational public school for Black children in the city.
1828: In September, Reverend Richard Allen at Bethel AME Church hosted the first meeting of Black Americans in the nation, the meeting of the American Society of Free Persons of Color.
1831: In September, the Female Literary Association was formed for Black women of the city.
1837: In August an anti-Black race riot erupted at the Flying Horses Tavern located on South Street that both Black and white people patronized.
1838: The Appeal of Forty Thousand Citizens, Threatened with Disfranchisement, to the People of Philadelphia attempted to persuade Philadelphians to vote against the ratification of a new constitution for Pennsylvania in 1838 because the word “white” had been inserted prior to “freemen” as a qualification for voting.
1842: Race riots between Irish and black residents competing for menial jobs.
1847: The Church of the Crucifixion was founded at 8th and Bainbridge in an area known for its racial discord.
1849: The Institute of Colored Youth was founded with funding from Richard Humphreys, a white American Quaker who desired a school designed by and established to educate people of African descent.
1854: The Banneker Literary Institute, named after black mathematician Benjamin Banneker, was one of several literary and debating societies in nineteenth-century Philadelphia.
1855: Written in 1855 by a Philadelphia songwriter who was inspired by the whistling of a street musician, “Listen to the Mocking Bird” was one of the most popular songs of the nineteenth century.
1857: Published in London in 1857, Frank J. Webb’s The Garies and Their Friends is among the earliest novels written by an African American.
1863: Camp William Penn was established as a Union Army training ground in Cheltenham Township for African American soldiers who became United States Colored Troops (USCT) in the Civil War.
1865: On December 6th, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified outlawing chattel slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment of crime.
1867: On March 22, the Pennsylvania street cars were desegregated in the state.
1871: On Election Day, black educator/activist Octavius Catto is killed at 814 South Street.
1881: Black Philadelphians become policemen and postal workers for the first time; city schools are desegregated.
1896: On May 18, the Supreme Court ruled on the Plessy vs. Ferguson case, establishing the "separate but equal" doctrine, which legitimized racial segregation as constitutional law in the United States.
1897: On July 21, The National Association of Colored Women was established in Washington, DC at the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church.
1899: W.E.B. Du Bois published The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study, commissioned by University of Pennsylvania.

The 20th Century: Migration, Civil Rights, and Cultural Renaissance

1902: The Historic Eden Cemetery in suburban Delaware County, established in 1902, operates as the oldest Black-owned cemetery in the nation still in use, and a monument to the Civil Rights Movement and Philadelphia’s 7th Ward.
1908: Since 1908, Starr Garden Park has been an important neighborhood asset.
1913: Held in 1913 in South Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Emancipation Exposition marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation with events and exhibits celebrating African American progress.
1948: The North Broad building was sold to Father Reverend Major Jealous Divine, who reopened it as The Divine Lorraine Hotel, the first residential hotel in the nation to be fully racially integrated.
1950s-1960s: Philadelphia became a center for fair housing advocacy.
1955: Walter D. Palmer started the Palmer Foundation as 21-year-old with the aim to educate and enhance Black communities.
1957: Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first legislation protecting Black rights since Reconstruction.
1960s: Walt Palmer joined forces with a man from North Philadelphia named Playtell Benjamin, who was a great orator and historian.
1960: The Civil Rights Act of 1960 is signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on May 6.
1964: On Friday, August 28, 1964, a scuffle with police at the busy intersection of Twenty-Second Street and Columbia Avenue sparked a three-day riot involving hundreds of North Philadelphians hurling bottles and bricks at police and looting stores.
1967: Black students called for a Black students’ strike on November 17th, 1967, when they asked all Black students across Philadelphia to leave their schools and go home.
1975: The first ODUNDE Festival is held in Grays Ferry.
1976: Opened to the public in 1976, the African American Museum in Philadelphia (AAMP) was the first major museum of African American history and culture established by an American municipality.
1977: The Global Sullivan Principles, launched in 1977 by Philadelphia civil rights leader Leon H.
1985: Philadelphia Fire is a complex fictional account of the MOVE bombing, the 1985 tragedy in which Philadelphia police used explosives to dislodge the Afrocentric, back-to-nature group MOVE from its West Philadelphia compound.
1986: Martin Luther King Jr. Philadelphia has had a greater influence on Martin Luther King Jr. holiday traditions than any city other than King’s birthplace, Atlanta.
1995: The Naval Base closes.

The 21st Century: Continuing the Legacy

2010: Walt Palmer helped to set up the School Without Walls, recruiting young people to come in and get an education.
2015: A Philadelphia chapter of the decentralized, nonhierarchical movement officially formed in May 2015.

Key Figures in Philadelphia's African American History

Richard Allen (1760-1831): A Black religious leader, founder and first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church.
Absalom Jones (1746-1818): An African-American abolitionist and clergyman.
James Forten: An African-American abolitionist and wealthy businessman in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Octavius V. Catto (1839-1871): An educator, intellectual, and civil rights activist who fought for equal rights for African Americans in Philadelphia.
William Still (1821-1902): An abolitionist, conductor on the Underground Railroad, and author of "The Underground Railroad."
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911): An abolitionist, poet, and author who used her writing and oratory to advocate for civil rights and women's suffrage.
W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963): A scholar, activist, and author of "The Philadelphia Negro," a groundbreaking sociological study of the African American community in Philadelphia.
Marian Anderson (1897-1993): An opera singer, contralto, humanitarian and Civil Rights icon.
Cecil B. Moore (1915-1979): A civil rights activist and lawyer who led the Philadelphia chapter of the NAACP in the 1960s.
Rev. Leon H. Sullivan (1922-2001): A civil rights leader and pastor who founded the Opportunities Industrialization Center (OIC) to provide job training and educational opportunities for African Americans.
Walter D. Palmer: Started the Palmer Foundation as 21-year-old with the aim to educate and enhance Black communities.

Historical Landmarks and Sites

The African American Museum in Philadelphia (AAMP): The first major museum of African American history and culture established by an American municipality.
Mother Bethel AME Church: The mother church of the African Methodist Episcopal denomination, founded by Richard Allen.
Historic Eden Cemetery: The oldest Black-owned cemetery in the nation still in use.
Johnson House Historic Site: A key site on the Underground Railroad, offering refuge to freedom seekers.
Belmont Mansion Underground Railroad Museum: Home of abolitionist judge Richard Peters.
Paul Robeson House: Served as the residence of the esteemed human rights activist.

The WD Palmer Foundation: Continuing a Legacy of Education and Empowerment

Walter D. Palmer started the Palmer Foundation as 21-year-old with the aim to educate and enhance Black communities. In 1955, he created the Palmer Foundation to gather information on African and African American people. The Palmer Foundation and the Black People’s University was, in 1955, a unincorporated association. Black People’s University helped to train people in leadership, politics, and grassroots organization. By the 1960s, Palmer's notoriety had become well known locally and nationally.

The Palmer Foundation has used a number of vehicles to teach leadership in order to reclaim, affirm, and develop communities, projects Walt Palmer has worked on throughout his life. In 2010, Walt Palmer helped to set up the School Without Walls, recruiting young people to come in and get an education.

Some of the names of people trained in politics by Palmer, some are still alive, for instance: Councilman Curtis Jones and United States Congressman Chaka Fatah, United States Congressman Lloyd Evans, Pennsylvania state legislator David P.

The African American Museum | A Journey Through History for Kids! #funforkids #3danimationforkids

Audacious Freedom: African Americans in Philadelphia 1776-1876 exhibit at The African American Museum in Philadelphia

Civil Rights Events Timeline

Philadelphia's history is intertwined with the national civil rights movement. Here's a timeline highlighting key events in Philadelphia alongside significant national events:

Date	Philadelphia Event	National Event
1954		Supreme Court strikes down public school segregation in Brown vs. Board of Education.
December 1, 1955		Rosa Parks refuses to give her seat to a white passenger on a public bus and is arrested in Montgomery, Alabama.
September 4, 1957		Arkansas governor Orval Faubus deploys the Arkansas National Guard to prevent nine African-American students from enrolling at Little Rock Central High School.
February 1, 1960		The sit-in protest movement begins at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.
December 15, 1960	Cecil B. Moore is elected President of the Philadelphia chapter of the NAACP.
October 1, 1962		James Meredith becomes the first African-American to enroll at the University of Mississippi.
August 28, 1963		A. Phillip Randolph and Bayard Rustin organize the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom to advocate for the passage of “meaningful civil rights laws” and greater economic rights for African Americans. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivers his famous “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
September 15, 1963		In the wake of desegregation efforts in Birmingham, Alabama, the 16th Street Baptist Church is bombed by members of the Ku Klux Klan, killing four young African-American girls.
July 2, 1964		President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law.
August 11, 1965		Following a minor police incident, race riots erupt in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles.
October 15, 1966		Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton found the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California.
April 4, 1968		The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

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