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It\u2019s a story about America\u2019s founding that doesn\u2019t begin in a Philadelphia state house \u2014 but on a rancid English slave ship sailing for Pennsylvania shores. It\u2019s a story about the bustling slave auctions that once occupied the cobblestones outside the Old London Coffee House, while patriots plotted insurrection inside the Old City<\/a> shop. A story about countless Black Philadelphians who sacrificed their own lives to a yellow fever epidemic \u2014 nursing dying victims and hauling the dead \u2014 to prove their worth to white Philadelphia residents.<\/p>\n Becoming American: Philadelphia\u2019s Story<\/a>, a new documentary now streaming on PBS.org, tells the story of Philadelphia and the creation of America through the lens and experiences of Black Philadelphians.<\/p>\n \u201cAt its core, this film is about people,\u201d said executive producer Oliver St. Clair Franklin. \u201cThose whose stories have too often gone untold \u2014 and the city that brought them together.\u201d<\/p>\n While telling the story of America\u2019s founding in its 250th year, the film stays firmly rooted in colonial Philadelphia neighborhoods, and the lives of lesser-known activists and artisans who shaped the republic \u2014 and the age. <\/p>\n People like Anthony Benezet, a French-born abolitionist who formed the African Free School out of his Chestnut Street home in 1770. Cyrus Bustill, a Revolutionary-era brewer and baker, who helped found the Philadelphia Free African Society. And the soaring lives of Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, pioneering Philadelphia abolitionists and rights leaders, both born into slavery.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to tell the story that would connect African Americans to the founding era,\u201d said Franklin, 80, scholar and former chief arts and cultural official for the city of Philadelphia. \u201cIn the process of doing this film, I realized that it will connect a lot of people to the founding because it\u2019s a story of resistance and resilience.\u201d<\/p>\n Franklin, who grew up in Baltimore, attended Lincoln University<\/a> before earning a bachelor\u2019s of philosophy in economics from Balliol College<\/a> at University of Oxford in 1970. For years, he served as Philly\u2019s chief British delegate.<\/a><\/p>\n