“The only thing you absolutely have to know,” as Albert Einstein once said, “is the location of the library.” When it comes to Philadelphia’s public schools, Einstein’s dictum leaves most students hamstrung, as the district’s number of librarians has declined sharply in recent decades. “In 1991, the School District of Philadelphia had 176 paid librarians,”
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At the first hint of spring in March, thousands of voices ring out from our ponds and wetlands. It might still feel chilly to human skin, but the thawing ground and lengthening days tell hordes of frogs that life is returning to the earth. It’s time to get it on. Each male wood frog, spring
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Consider this scenario: a person asks their partner to clean up the laundry in their shared bedroom. In doing this, the bedroom would be tidy. The person who put the request in has done everything to keep the bedroom tidy for themselves, and even goes so far as to be the consistent caretaker and cleaner
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I don’t know what was more depressing, the dead raccoon alongside Cardington Road at the edge of the freshly erected construction fencing, or the clearcut hillside it had died trying to reach. Cardington cuts through the Cobbs Creek and Karakung golf courses in West Philly, and two weeks ago both sides of the road were
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The FBI kept Hakim’s Bookstore, 210 S. 52nd Street, under surveillance for some time, sniffing around for subversion, says Yvonne Blake, 70. Daughter of Dawud Hakim, the store’s late founder, Blake recounts how her father had done the unthinkable in 1959 by opening an independent Black bookstore, five years before segregation would be outlawed in
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Before the chic boutiques and overpriced cafés arrive, the first sign of gentrification is often a slew of ubiquitous posters stapled to telephone poles reading, “We Buy Houses.” One is more than likely to find these illegally-placed advertisements in low-income parts of the city where desperation for fast cash can outweigh the benefit of long-term
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February is environmental Justice Month, a fitting time for Philadelphia to launch its Environmental Justice Advisory Commission. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin or income, with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws,
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Pennsylvania “locks up a higher percentage of its people than almost any democracy on earth,” states the Prison Policy Initiative, a nonprofit in Northampton, Massachusetts, that works to end mass incarceration. In addition, more than 40,000 Philadelphians, disproportionately Black and Brown, come home each year from state and federal prisons, according to a January 31, 2017
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In colonial Jamaica a group of enslaved women were bathing in the nude, washing clothes and likely gossiping on a riverbank when some traveling Englishmen spied them, according to Kevin Dawson, associate professor of history at the University of California, Merced, in his book “Undercurrents of Power: Aquatic Culture in the African Diaspora.” Thrilled with
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Following the birth of her first son in 2018, Melanie Hasan experienced postpartum depression, a condition that affects millions of women each year. She turned to natural dyeing to find comfort. “Just dipping your hands into a really nice, lukewarm bath and absorbing the color of an onion skin, or just embracing the smell of
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