Neighborhood Jawnts tour revisits North Philly civil rights fight – phillytrib.com

Neighborhood Jawnts tour revisits North Philly civil rights fight  phillytrib.com

A recent weekend tour put the spotlight on North Philadelphia Freedom Fighter Kenneth Salaam talks about the 1965 desegregation struggle at Girard College on Friday. —TRIBUNE PHOTO/KAYLA BROWN A recent weekend tour put the spotlight on North Philadelphia's civil rights movement and the young activists who helped change the city. The latest "Neighborhood Jawnts" tour, a collaboration among Philadelphia250, the Philadelphia Visitor Center and community partners, recently took participants on a journey through some of North Philadelphia's most significant sites of Black activism, education and social change. Through firsthand accounts from the original youth Freedom Fighters, who marched alongside NAACP leader Cecil B. Moore, the tour explored how grassroots protests helped dismantle segregation and expand employment opportunities.

The Neighborhood Jawnts bus goes to historical civil rights locations around North Philadelphia. —TRIBUNE PHOTO/KAYLA BROWN The tour began at the Philadelphia Visitor Center at Sixth and Market Street before making its way through North Philadelphia and other locations tied to the struggle for racial equity. Stops included Girard College, the Cecil B. Moore Avenue corridor, North Broad Street, Ridge Avenue, the Church of the Advocate and the former Board of Education building at 21st Street and Benjamin Franklin Parkway. During the tour on Friday, Calvin Kelly, one of the young activists who marched with Moore during the campaign to desegregate Girard College,