This story was originally published by The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence in America. It is the third story in a three-part series about the roots and realities of gun violence in Black America. You can read the first installments at thetrace.org. Sign up for The Trace newsletters here. Walter Palmer, 90, vividly
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portrait by Mark Likosky “Amazing things happen in communities when its most resilient members—youth—are empowered to visibly take the lead in designing, building and problem-solving for its future.” — AG Any designer can draft plans. This one is drafting an army of doers, makers and earth-shakers. Alex Gilliam is the indomitable force behind the design consultancy
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portrait by Mark Likosky “The central question of whether we are going to invest in a public system that educates all of our children with equity and justice—in a city where race and poverty play so heavily into their life experiences—is not just a question about our city’s future, but our standing as a moral
MoreIllustration by Narrator Essay by Christopher Putvinski Anyone who thinks they can change the world on their own is both wrong and dangerous.” It was in early 2013 when I first heard these words from distinguished anthropologist Wade Davis. I mistakenly took it as defeatist: Was he implying that a single person wasn’t capable of
MoreWorkshop School student leader and rising sophomore Quwontay Hunter works on acarpenter project By Alex Jones Quwontay Hunter has changed a lot over the past few years. Since enrolling at the Workshop School, his teachers, mentors and mom agree: the 16-year-old rising sophomore from West Philadelphia hasn’t just grown—he’s flourished. When the friendly, soft-spoken teen
MoreKids taking a hike with the Urban Blazers program learn which berries are edible | photo by Urban Blazers by Hannah Waters The woods of Fairmount Park are haunted. There, in a dilapidated hut, lives the Green Lady, according to local legend. She roams the park with a single purpose: to steal kids who venture too
MorePhillyEarth permaculture students at the Village of Arts and Humanities stand with their teacher, Jon Hopkins (center) in the middle of their garden | photos by Jared Gruenwald By Marilyn Anthony The cob oven, hand-built from Warnock Street clay, was nearly finished when it suddenly collapsed. Jon Hopkins, Director of the PhillyEarth project thought, “Oh my
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Free Library of Philadelphia President Siobhan Reardon | photo by Jon Roemer By Marilyn Anthony In 2008, Siobhan Reardon, the first female president of the Free Library of Philadelphia, had some challenging ingredients to work with when she arrived: a 30 percent budget cut, a stalled capital campaign, pressure to close many neighborhood libraries and the astounding
MoreElementary students at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education get down in the mud during a hike | photo by Rebecca Dhondt by Justin Klugh As a child, environmental leader Mike Weilbacher can remember getting lost in the pine woods of Long Island. “That was our home,” he recalls. “We’d go off, two miles away from
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Endangered tigers and gorillas are now roaming the grounds at the Philadelphia Zoo. Can its consumer education programs make conservation activists of the humans walking among them?
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