Advocacy, Cultural Heritage
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Nina Simone wrote “Mississippi Goddam” in 1963 in response to the racially motivated murders of Emmett Till and Medgar Evers in Mississippi, and the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama.

Everybody knows about Mississippi where no criminal charges were brought against the police officer who killed one-year-old Kohen Wiley on June 14, 2026.

The blue tsunami will bring change to the Magnolia State. Scott Colom defeated Confederate-loving Cindy Hyde-Smith. Colom will become Mississippi’s first Black senator elected by popular vote and the first Black senator since 1881. Hiram Rhodes Revels and Blanche K. Bruce were appointed by the Mississippi legislature during Reconstruction.

Senator-elect Colom stands on the shoulders of Medgar Evers; civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner; James Meredith; and Fannie Lou Hamer.

Before all the votes were counted, Hyde-Smith boasted, “I blocked Scott Colom from being a federal judge. And you blocked him from being a U.S. senator.”

Mississippi claims it’s the “birthplace of America’s music.”

Mississippi is the birthplace of B.B. King. Like B.B.’s old-time-used-to-be, Hyde-Smith made her move too soon on election night.

Advocacy, President Trump

Voters Thump Trump and Republicans

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President Donald Trump repeatedly asked voters to “pretend that I’m on the ballot.” They did. A blue tsunami wiped out Trump’s surrogates and enablers.

Billionaires, led by Elon Musk, spent hundreds of millions of dollars in a desperate effort to retain Republican-control of Congress. The oligarchs were trumped by the votes of ordinary Americans who are struggling with the high cost of living.

The tsunami of votes for Scott Colom flipped Forrest County which is named for Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest. If Colom maintains his lead over Cindy Hyde-Smith, he will defeat the senator who blocked his judicial nomination and become the first Black senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction.

For Republicans, it was a rainy night in Georgia where Black women won eight statewide offices.

Keisha Lance Bottoms, the great-great-granddaughter of Sheppard Peek who was born into slavery, will be sworn in as the nation’s first Black female governor. Bottoms’ late father, Major Lance, is smiling with pride from his heavenly perch and saying, “Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um.”

Advocacy, President Trump

Tuesday, November 3rd is Election Day. Like tens of millions across the country, I voted early. If you haven’t yet voted, check the location of your polling place.

A blue wave will wipe out the do-nothing GOP-controlled Congress.

From The New York Times Editorial Board:

Voters should keep in mind Mr. Trump’s failure to keep his campaign promises, his attempts to undermine American democracy and his flagrant corruption. They should be thinking of the Republican Party’s acquiescence to this abuse of power, and they should hold Republicans accountable. Today’s Democratic Party has plenty of flaws, including a disappointing failure to present a coherent agenda of its own. Nonetheless, Democrats offer the only alternative this year to the damage that Mr. Trump and his party have inflicted on the nation. A vote for a Democratic candidate is the best way for Americans to repudiate the Trump administration’s performance over the past two years.

[…]

He has created a culture of corruption and avarice with no precedent. He has pardoned political cronies, violent felons among them. He has used the levers of power, including regulatory oversight and diplomacy, to bring in billions of dollars of profit for his family business and his closest supporters. In 2025 alone, the president’s business empire earned $2.24 billion, nearly two-thirds of it from cryptocurrency, which Mr. Trump’s executive branch is supposed to be regulating.

What has the Republican-controlled Congress done to rein in these abuses? Virtually nothing. With only a few exceptions, the Senate has approved inept cabinet members and agency heads and then stood by as they rounded up legal immigrants, brought ludicrous criminal charges against political opponents, depleted the military of top talent and spurned the scientific consensus on the need for vaccines.

On Election Day, vote them out and party at the polls.

Advocacy, Historic Preservation, President Trump

Citizens Take Action to Save Section 106

The National Historic Preservation Act was signed into law on October 15, 1966. With Section 106 of the NHPA under attack by the Trump administration, preservationists are not popping bottles. Instead, they are mobilizing and taking action to protect historic places.

As a community preservationist, I used the Section 106 review process to block the Philadelphia Housing Authority from demolishing 2125 Ridge Avenue, the former location of the Checker Café and one of the few extant buildings associated with Philadelphia’s golden age of jazz.

2125 Ridge Avenue is one of the four Philadelphia Section 106 success stories on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s map.

The Ridge on the Rise Mural at Checker Café is a “community-submitted Section 106 success story”:

The Ridge on the Rise mural on the south-facing wall of the Checker Café is a visual history of Ridge Avenue’s African American cultural, entertainment, and civil rights heritage. In addition to depicting the Pearl Theater, Pearl Bailey and John Coltrane, the mural addresses community protests against Girard College’s segregationist policies. The mural recalls the era when Ridge Avenue functioned as a self-contained commercial and cultural district, with shops, hotel, farmers market, restaurants, theaters, and jazz venues serving the Black community.

For nearly 90 years, 2125 Ridge Avenue has served as a visual anchor for the Ridge Avenue commercial corridor in Sharswood. In the wake of the Great Migration, the demographics of the Sharswood neighborhood changed.

Ridge Avenue became a safe haven for African Americans. 2125 Ridge Avenue was home to the Checker Café, an afterhours jazz club. In the 1930s to the 1950s, the Checker Café was the place to be and be seen. It was popular with entertainers, celebrities, and political figures. Pearl Bailey worked as a singing waitress at the Checker Café in the mid-1930s. The Checker Café was about intersectionality and diversity.

Read more

UPDATE:

Advocacy, President Trump

People’s Supreme Court Guide

It’s October so the U.S. Supreme Court is back in session. According to the latest Gallup poll, the Court’s approval is 34%, a historic low. As the conservative justices kowtow to President Trump on affirmative action, reproductive rights, voting rights, redistricting and presidential accountability, public trust in the Court has eroded.

The Court’s conservative justices increasingly evoke Pigmeat Markham’s caricature of judicial power running amok.

But what is happening at the Court is no laughing matter. As Democracy Forward notes, “the Court has increasingly become a venue for disputes arising out of the Trump-Vance administration’s actions.”

The People’s Guide to the U.S. Supreme Court, published by Democracy Forward, is a public education resource designed to help ordinary Americans understand the legal questions before the justices and the potential effects of their decisions on everyday life. The guide breaks down complicated court proceedings into accessible explanations that inform public debate and civic engagement.

By explaining the background of cases, the competing legal arguments and the rights and interests at stake, the guide helps readers understand what the Court is deciding and why those decisions matter.

To download The People’s Guide to the U.S. Supreme Court 2026–2027 Term, click here.

Advocacy, Artificial Intelligence, Cultural Heritage, John Coltrane, John Coltrane House

John Coltrane at 100

John William Coltrane was born on September 23, 1926 in Hamlet, North Carolina, the only child of John and Alice Blair Coltrane. Two months after his birth, his maternal grandfather, the Reverend William Blair, was promoted to presiding elder in the A.M.E. Zion Church. Rev. Blair moved his extended family, including his infant grandson, to High Point, North Carolina where Coltrane grew up.

After the death of his maternal grandfather, father and grandmother, Coltrane’s mother moved to Philadelphia in search of better employment opportunities around 1942. She was part of the Great Migration.

Coltrane stayed in High Point to finish his education at William Penn High School where he was voted “Best Dressed Boy” as a junior, and the “Most Musical” in his class. Coltrane moved to Philadelphia in June 1943 to join his mother. And the rest is history.

City Council designated September 23, 2026 as John Coltrane Day in Philadelphia in recognition of the city’s “central role in shaping his artistic and cultural legacy.”

Trane honed his sound in the clubs on the “Golden Strip” and on Ridge Avenue. He lived in North Philadelphia from 1943 to 1958, first in an apartment building and later in a rowhouse. The John Coltrane House was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1999.

I used AI to bring Coltrane back to the Golden Strip.

Café Society Musical Bar was a popular spot on the Golden Strip. It was located three blocks from Coltrane’s apartment. Café Society is the first stop on my upcoming bus tour, Tracing Trane: A Tour of John Coltrane’s North Philadelphia, on Sunday, September 27, 2026. The tour is presented by Scribe Video Center’s North Philadelphia History Festival: The John Coltrane Edition.

The bus tour is free but reservations are required. You can RSVP here.

Trane’s final performance in Philadelphia was on November 11, 1966 at the last tour stop, Mitten Hall .

John Coltrane joined the ancestors on July 17, 1967.

Advocacy, Cultural Heritage

Is That Jazz?

Gil Scott-Heron’s 1981 release “Is That Jazz?” challenges conventional definitions of jazz and asks who gets to decide what qualifies as jazz music. Scott-Heron posits that jazz is a living tradition rooted in the Black experience, resistance and improvisation.

Jazz bassist and composer Christian McBride is a Philly native and 11-time GRAMMY® winner.

In a recent op-ed published in the New York Amsterdam News, McBride asked: Is this jazz?:

Jazz has always evolved in cycles. In every generation, there are many who believe jazz is either dying or losing its identity, yet it continually absorbs new influences while its central rhythmic language — swing — remains its defining thread.

You might be curious to know what I see in jazz right now, from my vantage point of the jazz world from many angles, as a bassist, an administrator, a broadcaster, a festival curator, and most of all, a fan.

[…]

The ’70s were all about the powerhouse bands. Where did this leave the jazz icons of the older generation? Did Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Art Blakey, Sarah Vaughan, Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar Peterson, Betty Carter, Max Roach, Horace Silver, Abbey Lincoln, and the Modern Jazz Quartet just become obsolete and irrelevant overnight?

It depends on whom you ask.

[…]

I’ve found George Wein’s lineups for the Newport Jazz Festival between 1969 and 1973 pretty fascinating from a historical standpoint: Rahsaan Roland Kirk, James Brown, Maxine Sullivan, Sly & the Family Stone, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Aretha Franklin, Buddy Tate, Sun Ra, Roberta Flack, Freddie Hubbard, Dionne Warwick, B.B. King, Ike & Tina Turner, Sonny Stitt, Donny Hathaway, Dorothy Donegan, Dizzy Gillespie, Curtis Mayfield, Jimmy Witherspoon, Mahalia Jackson, Ornette Coleman, and so many more were featured. As the decade progressed, more of the aforementioned young funk bands were also booked.

From a historical/musical standpoint, I find the musical diversity to be awe-inspiring. Who wouldn’t want to see Sly & the Family Stone and Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers on the same stage?

There was one serious question that was being asked by a broad number of people, though: Is this jazz?

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Advocacy, Historic Preservation

All That Philly Jazz Joins Coalition to Protect Section 106

The National Historic Preservation Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on October 15, 1966. Section 106 of the NHPA requires recipients of federal funding to review whether their actions will have an “adverse effect” on a property eligible for or listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Section 106 review mandates that agencies consult with State Historic Preservation Officers, Tribal Historic Preservation Officers, community organizations, and the public. The goal is to identify potential historic resources, assess adverse effects, and explore ways to avoid or mitigate harm before a project proceeds. Section 106 protection applies to housing, transportation, infrastructure, federal properties, community development, and other projects.

Section 106 review saved from complete demolition Carman Gardens (here and here), a 1920 building that started out as a silent movie house and was later converted into a roller skating rink. Roger Lloyd bought Carman Gardens Roller Skating Rink in the mid-1970s. Under Lloyd’s leadership, the rink became a safe space for North Philadelphia’s Black community. He kept the rink open for 46 years.

I was a Section 106 consulting party for the Philadelphia Housing Authority’s Sharswood/Blumberg Transformation Project. I objected to the proposed demolition of 2125 Ridge Avenue, one of the few extant buildings associated with Philadelphia’s golden age of jazz. 2125 Ridge Avenue was home to the Checker Café, an afterhours jazz club. In the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s, the Checker Café was the place to be and be seen. The State Historic Preservation Officer agreed with me that 2125 Ridge Avenue is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

If 2125 Ridge Avenue had been demolished, we would have lost a building that holds stories of jazz legends like Billie Holiday and Pearl Bailey. We also would have lost the Ridge on the Rise mural painted on the south-facing wall of the Checker Café site.

Section 106 review is under attack by President Trump. The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation has proposed a major rewrite of the regulations governing Section 106 that would narrow the scope of review of federally-funded projects and reduce public participation.

A new coalition of nearly 700 organizations and Tribal Nations, including All That Philly Jazz, is fighting back. We signed an open letter urging Congress to protect and strengthen Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. The national coalition is spearheaded by Cultural Heritage Partners. We asked that Congress:

  • Reject the Advisory Council for Historic Preservation’s proposed regulatory gutting of Section 106.
  • Record your opposition during the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs’ review and the public comment period, now underway.
  • Reject statutory changes that weaken Section 106, whether advanced independently or as part of a
    broader permitting package.
  • Defend Congress’s constitutional authority against executive efforts to narrow, circumvent, or evade the preservation laws Congress enacted.
  • Seek genuine improvements to Section 106 based on facts and data to make review more valuable and efficient without trading away the rights, voices, and protections that make the process meaningful.

Read the full letter here.