![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_5845.jpg\")
Robert Kenyatta laughs and play the congas during the Freedom School celebration. (Paulina Reyes\/Billy Penn)<\/p>\n
The students\u2019 illustration, storytelling and poetry lined the white wall of the tent. Each contribution, many of which are also distributed by a student-run publishing house, helped to tell the stories of people of color in Philadelphia and the social and revolutionary changes that impacted them and the U.S. more broadly in the 19th century.<\/p>\n
Among those whose work was shared was Madison Pilgrim, a rising high school senior, who attended Jubilee before the Covid pandemic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was in elementary school and I didn\u2019t even know they published more stories I had written and more drawings I had. I wrote about the Mexican Revolution, the atomic bomb and the AIDS crisis in the \u201880s,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Pilgrim said she appreciated that her Jubilee experience taught her about history she wouldn\u2019t have known otherwise.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI took AP history last year and we didn\u2019t talk about the Mexican Revolution at all, and it was a big deal in the U.S.,\u201d she said. \u201cThese stories need attention; otherwise, they\u2019re forgotten and no one is passing it down. This gave me a love for history.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Jubilee School founder Karen Falcon, with two students at the Freedom Library exhibit during the North Philadelphia Historical Festival in late July. (Paulina Reyes\/Billy Penn)<\/p>\n
Falcon founded the Jubilee school 47 years ago when she arrived in Philly fresh out of college.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an afterschool reading program. I had a full house just for students who came after school to read, write, and journal,\u201d said Falcon, 75. \u201cI wondered why students were failing in school yet they love learning. It made no sense to me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
So she started her own program, beginning with preschool and kindergarten. As her own kids\u00a0 grew older, she incorporated third and fourth grades.<\/p>\n
\u201cI decided to start a school with that level of learning that could be kept alive,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s contagious, their joy. I love it when they\u2019re so excited about what they learned.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
That joy was apparent during this event, and contagious. Children sharing historical accounts in their words, reciting poetry and dancing brought everyone together in community.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the front row sat Dr. Walter Palmer, an organizer and activist who founded the Black People\u2019s University in Philadelphia in the 1950s to provide education and support for Black children. Next to him was Robert Kenyatta, the legendary percussionist who later performed his own storytelling song on the congas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The event gave the students a chance to meet the people behind some of the stories they were telling. It was special for both.<\/p>\n
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Dr Walter Palmer (center), Jasmine Cobb and Robert Kenyatta sit side by side during an event at North Philadelphia Historical Festival. (Paulina Reyes\/Billy Penn)<\/p>\n
\u201cIt keeps me alive, working with young people,\u201d Palmer said. \u201cI started the Black People\u2019s University in 1955. I was training young Black people about Black history and Black culture and civilization that was rooted deep in racism and slavery, and here we are 70 years later and it\u2019s still being perpetuated in another generation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is what education is about, teaching the future generations to carry forward the work of the past and build up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Palmer connected the day to his entire life, and the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was born in 1934, 70 years after the Emancipation Proclamation,\u201d he said. \u201cAlways learn the negative experiences, [then] reinterpret and redefine them. Our journey on this earth is liberation, not becoming a stranglehold, beaten down or diminished, but looking forward to the fight. We must get the wake-up call to learn about social work and help others learn who are less fortunate. It\u2019s so important when you advocate for your community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Places of Power exhibition\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Saturday July 26, the Places of Power exhibition \u2014 a community-based, augmented and virtual reality project celebrating African American diasporas and Puerto Rican culture \u2014 took place in the Villa Africana Colob\u00f3<\/strong> garden<\/a>.<\/p>\n The project involved Termite TV, which uses media to tell underrepresented peoples\u2019 stories. In this case, they took part in workshops that allowed long-term residents to share memories and histories of their Latine neighborhood in West Kensington via VR.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_5905.jpg\")
Angel Rosado and Andria Bibiloni of Norris Square project. (Paulina Reyes\/Billy Penn)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IMG_5943.jpg\")
The interior of the African hut constructed by Iris Brown and Grupo Motivos at the garden in Norris Square park. (Paulina Reyes\/ Billy Penn)<\/p>\n