Picture Window Paradise – Welcome to Levittown

“To the outsider, Levittown, Pennsylvania, seems like a vast mirage, a city of 4,000 spanking new ranch homes where a short year ago were acres of corn and wheat … ” Ladies Home Journal, March 1953   On Monday, June 23, 1952, John and Philomena Dougherty packed up their belongings, and with their two daughters in tow, drove from a government housing project in northeast...
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LeRoy Patrick (1915-2006)

The record of civil rights in Pennsylvania is checkered at best. Proponents realize that it requires much more than legislation to guarantee equality for all Pennsylvani­ans. More often than not, it takes courageous private cit­izens to stand up in the face of bigotry, discrimination, and oppression. One such individual was the Reverend Dr. LeRoy Patrick (1915-2006), of Pittsburgh. Patrick died...
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Out and About

Soul Soldiers The Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center recently unveiled the most comprehensive exhibition ever to explore the issues of the Vietnam War from an African American perspective. “Soul Soldiers: African Americans and the Vietnam Era” tells the story of the Vietnam War’s impact on African American life and culture by examining both the war and the civil rights...
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National Committee of Black Churchmen Pin at State Museum of Pennsylvania

The National Conference of Black Churchmen, founded in 1966 as the National Committee of Negro Churchmen, was an interdenominational organization to promote Black Power and encourage the influence of the movement on African American communities throughout the country. In 1966, the group published a full-page advertisement in the New York Times demanding power, freedom, and justice from the...
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