U. ponders West Phila. issues on King Day

Celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, students, faculty members and community members examined ways to improve the University's relations with West Philadelphia in accordance with King's principles. As a part of the third annual, 7-week long Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Celebration, yesterday's events took place throughout the day, concluding with an evening program during which University President Judith Rodin was scheduled to present the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Involvement Awards. But due to the death Sunday of her mother, Sally Seitz, Rodin was unable to attend any of yesterday's events, including the evening program and a reception held at her official residence, Eisenlohr Hall. Rodin's chief of staff, Steve Schutt, spoke on her behalf. All of the events addressed issues relating to King's principles -- including community service, the importance of dialogue among different groups, working with youth and non-violent resistance. The civil-rights activist was slain in 1968. Most of the discussion of King's ideals took the form of a dialogue about what many people describe as the University's strained relationship with the West Philadelphia community in recent years and past decades. Tension between the University and West Philadelphia intensified in the 1960s when the University, in partnership with the city's Redevelopment Authority, began moving residents and businesses out of the area to make way for the expanding campus. West Philadelphia is the home of 260,000 residents, 66 percent of whom are black. In fact, much of the campus today, including College Green, Superblock and 3401 Walnut Street, sits on land acquired through the Redevelopment Authority. "Penn is a guest inside a quarter of a million residents of West Philadelphia," said Social Work Professor Walter Palmer, keynote speaker at the noontime commemorative program. "To blur that distinction, the University must be sensitive to downsizing and expansion. It must incorporate its surrounding community to its agenda for progress." Palmer predates King in social activism. A West Philadelphia native, Palmer began working in the 1950s as a contemporary of Malcolm X. At yesterday afternoon's town meeting, Cory Bowman, associate director of the Penn Program for Public Service, described the division between the West Philadelphia community and the University as a "savage inequality." "Penn has a world class medical center, but how is it impacting the community in West Philadelphia?" Bowman asked. "It has the top graduate school of education, but how is it serving the West Philadelphia schools?" "The degree to which we integrate teaching, research and service to West Philadelphia is the extent to which we are headed in the right direction," he added. While discussing the University's town-gown relations, the events constantly returned to the theme of what activists can learn from King's example. Palmer, who worked with King, spoke, in particular, about the civil rights pioneer as a human being who made mistakes. "Activists who came before and after King hold him up as a beacon," he said. "Many attempt to deify him because of his influence. Though a great man, King was not a god." Because of King's moderate stance, he was not very popular in urban areas, including Philadelphia, according to Palmer. At one point, Philadelphia activists refused to let King into the city. Palmer approached King to express concerns about his non-militant stance of using integration as a political tool. "He was aware and sensitive to [these concerns]. But I saw him and he was tired. I said, 'You have got to get some rest. We really need you,' " Palmer said. "That's the last time I saw him. He was killed shortly after." Palmer stressed that "white is all right, but it's not all that. And being black is all right, but it's not all that. "We all grow, reproduce and we die. If you've lived 25 years worrying about race, color and wealth, then you've wasted a third of your life -- it's gone," he added. After listening to many of the speeches yesterday, first-year Education graduate student Vinay Harpalani said he walked out of the program encouraged by the progress made in the discussions. But he questioned his own role in them. "I'm interested. But in a [predominantly black] environment like that, the major question is, how can I contribute to the issues at hand?" Harpalani said. "I'm there, I'm listening and nobody's telling me that I can't be there. But when the dialogue about African Americans uses 'we,' and I'm not a part of that 'we,' I don't know how my interests in the issue can serve the community." College senior Margaret Quern, who received the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Involvement Award along with three other recipients, also addressed the issue of how she, as a white, served the predominantly black West Philadelphia and Camden, N.J., communities. "It takes being quiet, especially for a white person like me working with the black community," Quern said. "You have to shut up and not pretend like you have all the answers. King spoke for the misunderstood, the ignored. He listened, and that's why he was heard."

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