{"id":90872,"date":"2026-01-19T16:34:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T16:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/90872\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T16:34:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T16:34:15","slug":"philadelphia-activist-keeping-martin-luther-king-jr-s-message-at-girard-college-alive-6-decades-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/90872\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia activist keeping Martin Luther King Jr.’s message at Girard College alive 6 decades later"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the summer of 1965, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.<\/a>\u00a0stood outside the gates of Girard College to deliver a message that would become one of the most powerful civil rights moments<\/a>\u00a0in Philadelphia’s history.<\/p>\n

“It’s a sad experience at this stage in the 20th century,” King told demonstrators in August 1965, “to have a kind of Berlin Wall to keep the colored children of God out.”<\/p>\n

At the time, Girard College admitted only White orphaned boys. King’s visit brought national attention to a local fight already well underway, one fueled by young activists who had been marching long before he arrived.<\/p>\n

Among them was Kenneth Salaam, also known as “Freedom Smitty<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/p>\n

A line of police stands in front of the platform from which Dr. Martin Luther King speaks during a mass meeting in front of all-white Girard College in Philadelphia, August 1965. Dr. King said the wall surrounding the school was a symbol of evil and called for continued efforts to integrate the school.<\/p>\n

AP<\/p>\n

Salaam was just 15 years old when he joined the movement, marching alongside members of Cecil B. Moore’s Young Freedom Fighters<\/a>. Girard College was his first march, one that would last seven months and 17 days.<\/p>\n

Each morning before sunrise, hundreds of police officers surrounded the school. Salaam recalls violent confrontations \u2014 tear gas, beatings and even police motorcycles driven into crowds.<\/p>\n

Despite the brutality, the movement only grew stronger.<\/p>\n

The fight didn’t stop at Girard College.<\/p>\n

Salaam continued marching for civil rights across the South, including in Mississippi, where his cousin was killed in a Ku Klux Klan ambush.<\/p>\n

What the world often labels as civil unrest, Salaam experienced as a community. Families opened their homes. Strangers provided food, clothing and medicine. When the marches ended, supporters raised money to fly the activists back home to Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

Over time, Salaam and King developed a personal bond. He remembers King not only as a global leader, but as a man<\/a>, one he felt comfortable calling “Doc,” asking casually for a cigarette.<\/p>\n

\"kenneth-salaam.jpg<\/p>\n

CBS News Philadelphia<\/p>\n

King’s words that day outside Girard College left a lasting imprint.<\/p>\n

“Now is the time to straighten up Girard College,” King said.<\/p>\n

He was fighting for children like Salaam, children who would one day walk through those gates and receive an education once denied to them.<\/p>\n

Sixty years later, Salaam continues to share that message with Philadelphia’s youth.<\/p>\n

“I did not benefit from what I was doing,” Salaam said. “When I talk to young people, I tell them, we loved you before we knew you.”<\/p>\n

Salaam was jailed more times than he can count and was later honored to walk alongside King’s casket during the funeral procession.<\/p>\n

Today, like King and Cecil B. Moore before him, Salaam is passing the torch, reminding the next generation that meaningful change has always been driven by the young.<\/p>\n

“No great change in history has ever been done by old people,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the summer of 1965, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.\u00a0stood outside the gates of Girard College to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[44791,28,69,71,70,7523],"class_list":["post-90872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-dr-martin-luther-king-jr","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-spreading-the-love"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}