Walt Palmer: Organizer & Activist

Palmer loves African expression and soulful art of African people.

As a little boy his father would recite Paul Laurence Dunbar, a Black poet from the 19^th century. The stories of Black life intrigued Palmer. He would listen to the older men in his neighborhood discuss African history and Black history. Because of his natural curiosity, Palmer became fascinated with history in regards to Africans.

In 1960, Palmer created the Society for the Preservation of African and African American History. As an artist himself, Palmer got his art friends to start painting pictures of African history. Palmer eventually took those portraits and stood on street corners in Philadelphia to talk about history. He would stand on a crate and talk about African history and Black history, in what he called ‘Curbstone College.’ His speeches would draw crowds all over the city. Palmer then took this practice and started going into schools to lecture on the history of African Americans. He would go around to organize in neighborhoods and communities trying hard to help them change.

Palmer would go on to organize students in a school strike and work with student bodies in universities to champion Black history and African history as a course. Palmer helped create the Black Student Union at Temple University and the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) at the University of Pennsylvania. He believes that the ultimate challenge for Blacks is to liberate ourselves. When we do, we must model it for others. Palmer uses the tool of self-liberation to fight for Black people.

From a young age, Walt observed how Black people participated in business and gained a passion for enterprising from his father. Before American slavery, African societies had their own communities, cultures, governance, and enterprises. During slavery, they were forced to participate in business, essentially building the entire American economy, through uncompensated labor. Although slavery was over by the time Palmer was born, Black people were still did not have equal rights in the labor world. Palmer noticed how Black people in Atlantic City built the boardwalks, hotels, hospitals, restaurants, and schools, but could not use them.

Despite this discrimination, Palmer’s family persevered.

His maternal grandfather worked as a laborer during the day and owned a speakeasy which his daughter, Palmer’s mother, helped him operate in the evenings. It was here that Palmer’s mother and father met. Like most Black people during that time, Palmer’s father did not get much work so he did every odd and end job he could. He worked in a produce market; he carried wood, coal, and ice; he shined shoes; he combed beaches; he did anything he could to provide for his family. Palmer loved his father’s indomitable spirit and adopted this unwavering work ethic.

At 11 years old, when Palmer’s father passed away, he started enterprising by collecting junk and selling it. He sold newspapers and convinced the produce man to let him sell produce. He built his own wagon to carry orders and named the business “Palmer Brothers Incorporated.” He had a steady flow of trusted customers. Palmer had many more jobs and created many more types of business in his youth while still attending school. 

As an adult, Palmer continued to be involved in business ventures with a keen interest on increasing Black people’s participation in business. He, along with a group of others, created the Black United Fund during the 1960s to offer small loans to Black people who were considered unbankable. One of the largest business endeavors Palmer embarked on was attempting to re-open the Wisconsin Steel Mill in Chicago. During this process, founder of Jet Magazine John Johnson, made it his mission to meet Palmer because he was impressed by how big he dreamt and how he went after them. 

Palmer saw the ways business intersected with every aspect of his life. He used business to fight for freedom. He developed and built a Freedom School in 2005 to provide young people with the education and training necessary to learn how to organize around social change and become leaders. Palmer spent his life training people to be activists. He spent his life encouraging Black people to intentionally participate in global economics. He possessed a hunger for all Black people to be free and understood how enterprising would play a big role in liberation. 

Community highlights Walt Palmer’s long history of leadership and connection within the Philadelphia community. This book moves with Walt through his life in the once heavily segregated Atlantic City to the Black Bottom in Philadelphia all the way to his future prodigies in community leadership. As a child, Walt was a star at youth organizations, lending his talents to both the Cobbs Creek Civic Association and Black Oak Park. Later in his life, he created the Black People’s University of Philadelphia, one of the first Freedom Schools in the United States, and further, the Walter D. Palmer Leadership School, a K-12 school dedicated to community development, restoration, and leadership. Community not only explores Walter Palmer’s connection with the city of Philadelphia, but it also serves to inspire Black youth every day to foster community connection.

Walt Palmer became the caretaker of his family after his father’s passing when he was eleven years old. Motivated by his father’s work ethic and his determination to provide for his family, Palmer earned his chops by performing on the street corner in Center City, Philadelphia. Dance and Percussion highlights two artforms that are dear to Dr. Palmer’s heart. While never classically trained in either, both dance and percussion were prominent in Palmer’s early years and acted as the glue that would bring him together with some of the most important people in his life. 

Dance and Percussion builds upon Music, Art, Dance, and Drama by providing a more focused look into Black artistry, as well as how Palmer was able to use his musical talents to advocate for himself and his community. The book highlights Black dancers and musicians who were exceptional in their respective fields while also having to combat the racism and prejudice present in the two arenas. It covers dancers such as the Nicholas Brothers and Lavaugn Robinson, percussionists like Lex Humphries and Doc Gibbs, and even bandleaders like Paul Whitman and Dizzy Gillespie. Like in Music, Art, Dance, and Drama, the goal of the story is to expose young people to the power of the arts in the past 50 years of American History. Rhythm and dance have the power to become sites of both happiness and pain, community and individuality.

As a young boy, Palmer loved school, although he did poorly in junior high and high school. He enjoyed playing school and sharing information with people in his neighborhood. His natural curiosity about the world piqued his love of learning. Despite not doing well in school, Palmer believed he could succeed. Palmer cites his family as influential and foundational for his becoming into the activist he is today.

Before the age of 21, Palmer created the Freedom School to educate young people.

Walter Palmer was born in Atlantic City, NJ in 1934, after the Great Depression before the Second World War. During this time, African Americans fled the South to reestablish in the North, which was known as the Great Migration. When African Americans arrived to the North they found themselves in segregated cities, with hardships that resembled those in the South.  They faced discrimination with jobs, segregation in schools, and many other abuses that were reminiscent of Jim Crow laws in the South. As Palmer grew up, he formed the foundational belief that education is the key to liberation.

Palmer taught character and discipline, along with history and international relations. Although Palmer was not advanced in math, he used art to help him learn. His major was mechanical art, which he used to work and help his mother. Palmer continued to use his creative gifts of music and art to teach kids how to play drums and chess, even going on to play professionally with Sammy Davis Jr., John Coltrane, Billy Paul, and Dizzy Gillespie to name a few. Throughout his life, the struggles he had with education and black life strengthened his ability to overcome adversity. 

Palmer continued to teach about African history and racism, which led to the emergence of the Walter D. Palmer School in 2000. The two-story, 55,000 square foot building housed 200 preschoolers and 1100 k-12 students.  Large paintings of black activists lined the school hallways. The Walter D. Palmer School was a place for students to learn about their history and activism for Black liberation. 

Walt Palmer has been involved in political activism since his youth. He even got involved in a political group before he was old enough to vote, and later went on to work on local, state, and national campaigns. His campaign and social activism work connected him to quite a few government officials, and he often acted as a liaison between them and community members. He also started mentoring younger activists, many of whom went on to become prominent politicians in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. In his campaign work, his experiences from other parts of his life helped him understand strategies, negotiation, and how to motivate people. Walt Palmer also believes that politics is not just electoral politics— people are negotiating and using their power in all sorts of ways, every day. 

Walt Palmer attended Howard University law school at the age of 37, and immediately began to lead protests and social movements at the university. After graduating, he went on to clerk for community legal services and work with a variety of attorneys in the city of Philadelphia.

Walt Palmer grew up in Philadelphia with limited access to healthcare, often rejected from hospitals or given poor care on the basis of race, using mostly neighborhood pharmacies and the Philadelphia General Hospital for medical care. Once he graduated high school he worked as a surgical attendant at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, then was encouraged by his boss to apply to UPenn’s School of Respiratory Medicine. 

Despite racism he encountered, he graduated from the program and got a job at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), and was given a director position, given carte blanche to start and run the Cardio-Pulmonary department. For 10 years he worked with famous doctors, worked on improving ventilators, grew his department, and fought racism and segregation within the hospital. He treated patients including John F Kennedy’s infant son Patrick as well as New Jersey Governor Hughes’ child, and was involved in the Medical Committee for Human Rights.

When he left CHOP after 10 years, he worked for North Philadelphia Model Cities as director of community organizing, with a major accomplishment being his organizing of the November 17th, 1967 Philadelphia School Strike. He then worked at Temple University as the director of community organization for their Community Mental Health Center, and did a 30 day fast to protest the restraints being imposed on the Center. He’s worked with Philadelphia gangs, taught in the Medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, and today is a Fellow in the Philadelphia College of Physicians.

Walt Palmer learned about music at his kitchen table. His father, musically inclined and eager to pass it on, showed young Palmer rhythms by playing two spoons on the countertop. Knives and forks became his first drum set, and his childhood was filled with the melodies of his father’s tap shoes, Louis Armstrong’s trumpet, and Ella Fitzgerald’s blues. Music was inescapable and would become the foundation for his teaching later on in life.

While some might be surprised by the influence the arts played in Palmer’s career, he notes that “it had a sense of power. It was a way of galvanizing people and getting their attention right.” The people foregrounded in this story are not just singers or painters, but activists and role models. These stories act as a preservation of the past from which to build on in the present moment and the future.

In Music, Art, Dance, and Drama, Dr. Palmer celebrates the legacies of Black artists who have left their mark on both him and the world. Showcasing star musicians like John Coltrane and Nina Simone, cultural curators like John Allen and Shuna Ali Miah, and visual creators Barbara Bullock and Carole Byard, the book covers a broad spectrum of Black artistic history and invites young readers to increase their knowledge.

Religion has been a part of Walter Palmer’s life since birth. He was born into a large family on the northside of Atlantic City, NJ, and soon moved to bustling West Philadelphia. While his parents were less pious, they instilled a deep adoration of community, music and devotion. On Sundays, Walter split his time between Catholic mass and jubilant Episcopalian ceremonies, carefully donating a portion of his allowance to each institution. These churches served as a place for Walter to connect and rise with others, a specialty he continues to hold today. 

Throughout his later years, Walter incorporated his work with the church with his social justice initiatives. In 1968, Walter convinced Reverend Paul Washington to allow him to use the Church of the Advocate for the second national Black Power Conference. With over two thousand attendees, this event was a pinnacle of Walter’s ability to form connections with others and bring change. 

This book will dive into the intricacies of Walter Palmer’s relationships with God, family & community to showcase the opportunities that arise from religion.

Walt Palmer grew up during a time where the sports world was racially segregated. Black athletes were beginning to gain attention as they were breaking records, winning championships, and using their fame to stand up against racial discrimination. Palmer remembers hearing stories about Jesse Owens and how he dominated track and field in the 1936 Olympics. Palmer quickly understood how important this was for Black people as a whole. Owens’ wins were wins for the entire Black community to express to white people that they were talented, smart, and deserving of basic human rights like anyone else. This rang true for the wins of other Black athletes. Palmer learned that sports were political. 

Joe Louis was another athlete who inspired Palmer. In his childhood, Palmer’s father would put a small radio on the porch and the neighbors would gather around to listen to Louis’ boxing matches. He was incredible! Even President Franklin D. Roosevelt requested an individual meeting with Lewis to explain to him how important it was to win a particular fight against German Heavyweight Champion, Max Schmeling. Similar to Owens’ wins, this win would show Adolf Hitler that his beliefs in a superior Aryan race were completely inaccurate. Again, Palmer saw how sports were political. 

Palmer played sports for fun with the children in his neighborhood and eventually played on teams as he became a teenager. He danced, played football, basketball, and ran track. He continued with track and field well into adulthood. He had natural speed and learned technique along the way. He trained for 4 hours every day. He may have been a little late to the game beginning to attend meets at age 25, but he became a sub-master by age 30 and master by age 40. He continued to run and won all types of medals and trophies until the age of 80. 

Palmer used sports in every way he could. He brought people in his neighborhood together through sports and mentored young people through sports. Through his participation in activism, sports, and art, Palmer was able to connect with many people such as Walt Chamberlain, Muhammad Ali, and Sammy Daviss Jr., and observe how activism for civil rights was expressed in the sports industry. 

25 years worth of Walter Palmer’s work can be found at this website, with information about how the University of Pennsylvania gentrified and took over a historic neighborhood in West Philadelphia, the Black Bottom, in addition to many other neighborhoods in Philadelphia.

https://theblackbottom.wordpress.com/

Other links with information about the Black Bottom:

https://collaborativehistory.gse.upenn.edu/places/other-neighborhood-definitions/places/black-bottom

https://philly.curbed.com/2013/7/11/10221368/the-long-and-troubling-history-of-penntrification-in-west-philly

https://www.34st.com/article/2002/10/node-1584

University of Pennsylvania Links:

Walt Palmer as a speaker:

https://speakerhub.com/speaker/walter-palmer