“From Protest to Politics”

Abstract

This article traces the origins of black independent electoral activism in Philadelphia during the 1970s to the Black Power movement of the 1960s. Specifically, it argues that Black Power activists in Philadelphia turned to electoral strategies to consolidate their efforts to achieve community control over public institutions in the city's black working-class neighborhoods. Finally, the article concludes with a brief evaluation of the careers of African American activist state legislators David Richardson and Roxanne Jones and W. Wilson Goode, Philadelphia's first African American mayor.