In 1835, future circus magnate P. T. Barnum and an enslaved Black woman he bought for $1,000 bamboozled the public, according to the impresario’s 1855 autobiography and Mark Bramble’s 1980 musical “Barnum.” Barnum, living in New York, heard that the woman, Joice Heth, on exhibit in Philadelphia, claimed to be the 161-year-old former nursemaid of
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Nafis Middleton, a local rapper and anti-violence activist known as Fis Banga, was detained on Tuesday, December 15, by Philadelphia police from the 35th District in what he describes as “a traffic ticket gone wrong.” Middleton, 27, has been writing and producing anti-violence skits and raps for more than five years, but this week he
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David Rose—or Javat Agni, his Indigenous name—wasn’t aware of Germantown’s history until graduate school. As a descendent of the Cheraw people (aka Saura) of the Sauratown Mountains, he knew of the horrors settlers brought upon Indigenous peoples. “My whole life, growing up, we didn’t hear all the best stories about the settler states. We [heard]
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They needed somewhere to go. In March 2020, the City of Philadelphia began to disperse the homeless population that had settled around the Pennsylvania Convention Center, citing fears of a COVID-19 outbreak. Then in May, the city cleared the Philadelphia International Airport of its homeless population as well. In total, 51 people were cleared from
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On November 25 a few dozen people stood outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office around the corner from Chinatown to protest the deportation of 23 families, which include 28 children. Two of those families are being held at Berks County Residential Center, ICE’s Philadelphia Field Office, located in Leesport, PA, about 70 miles
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With birds singing in the background, three fellows at the Alliance for Watershed Education (AWE) walk through Camden’s Cramer Hill Nature Preserve. They point out a frog in a puddle, examine bones and feathers of a wild turkey, and point out invasive plants, among other conservation challenges. They wrap up with a request for visitors
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Hundreds of nurses at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Langhorne, PA, participated in a strike on Tuesday, November 17 as negotiations with their employer, Trinity Health Systems, remain at a standstill. Nurses of St. Mary’s and their union, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP), have drawn attention to staffing concerns at
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Ten adults dressed in layers, hats and face masks gathered on a chilly September morning to go birding in Tacony Creek Park. They kept a couple yards apart from each other while peering through binoculars at local birds such as robins, kingfishers and cardinals along with some recently arrived winter visitors like a red-breasted nuthatch
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What happens to a dream deferred? … Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode? Langston Hughes, “Harlem” In the aftermath of the police killing of Walter Wallace, a 27 year old black man suffering from bipolar disorder, I think the answer to Langston Hughes’ famous question is both: It exacts
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Death by Another Name By Constance Garcia-Barrio If she served as the lookout during a gas station holdup, Marie “Mechie” Scott, then 19, believed she would get cash to buy the heroin that helped her blunt deep pain. Raped first at age 5 and repeatedly into her teens, in addition to enduring poverty and homelessness,
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