By age 5, Philadelphia native Tatyana Woodard knew she was different. Born with a male body, she felt like a girl. She preferred girls’ clothes and loved White Diamonds, her grandmother’s perfume. Over time, Woodard’s conviction and hidden stash of feminine outfits grew. “At 16, I was put out of my house due to my
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There’s not a moment to lose, according to Ben Sand, 40, author of the 2020 book “A Kids Book About White Privilege.” “By 2045 the majority of children born in the United States will be children of color,” says Sand, of Portland, Oregon, who reports receiving death threats for writing the book. “Today’s young people
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The reverend Luis Cortés jr., 62, gave the invocation prayer at Barack Obama’s 2013 Presidential Inauguration Luncheon, conferred with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about not separating migrant families at the border and sipped tea with Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace. Yet wherever Cortés goes, his heart stays in El Barrio: the streets of North Philly’s
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Four new warehouses are setting up camp in Philadelphia, and clean air activists are concerned about the pollution of their vehicles. The four new sites include an Amazon facility in Southwest, a redevelopment of the former Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery in South Philly, a UPS site in the Northeast and a redevelopment of the Philadelphia
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On a quiet street in East Germantown is a small farm blooming with red bok choy, turnips, Brussel sprouts and nasturtium, all grown organically. Located within the confines of Awbury Arboretum, this is one of Philly’s “food forests,” also known as forest gardens. Food forests are a modern name for an ancient practice—historically found in
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Last fall labor organizers at the National Audubon Society began asking non-managerial staff at the 116-year-old environmental organization whether they would like to form a union in partnership with Communications Workers of America (CWA). A majority of staff, including workers in Philadelphia, voted yes, but Audubon has yet to recognize the group as an entity
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I was awake, curled in bed in a fetal position, about a year after my son, Khaaliq Jabbar Johnson was killed over a parking space,” says Dorothy Johnson-Speight, founder and executive director of Mothers In Charge (MIC), which assists parents of murdered children. “I had a vision where grieving mothers with bullhorns stood in a
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It was flooding in the Ablett Village public housing development in Camden’s Cramer Hill neighborhood. It had rained overnight from Saturday, April 24, into Sunday, April 25, and that brought water that pooled in driveways and on the sidewalks running between the area’s long, two-story brick apartment buildings. This is not at all unusual, according
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Even our roads reflect our racism. In December 2018, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) issued a report called “Crashes and Communities of Concern in the Greater Philadelphia Area.” They undertook the study as a means to investigate anecdotal evidence suggesting that people of color were more likely to be victims of severe car
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The country’s reckoning with issues of racial justice reached a boiling point last summer after the murder of George Floyd. What followed was an onslaught of streets emblazoned with “Black Lives Matter” and corporate commitments to support equity and examine racial injustice. Notably absent were commitments to cut funding from police budgets and plans to
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There’s a better place than the fridge for children’s art. Dorothea Gamble and Dagmar Mitchell of the Northern Liberties art boutique Trunc feel strongly about this—and are actively looking for young artists. “We want to get children in the shop,” says Gamble. She and her partner, Mitchell, both 65, pride themselves on selling art, furniture,
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