Photo Courtesy of the Special Collections Research Center. Temple University Libraries. Philadelphia, PA

The North Philadelphia History Festival (NPHF) is a cultural celebration of the African American and Puerto Rican communities in North Philadelphia. Across four days, historic sites along Ridge Avenue, North Broad Street and other locales will be transformed into living exhibits created by artists, historians, curators and other cultural workers. These multimedia projects and events will explore the emergence and impact of these communities in the 19th and 20th century. All events will be free and open to the public. Registration opens soon!

The North Philadelphia History Festival is supported by WILLIAM PENN FOUNDATION and THE PEW CENTER FOR ARTS AND HERITAGE.

PROJECTS:

The Pyramid Club: Black Leisure and Cultural Empowerment
Artists: Leslie Willis-Lowry and Dr. William Dodd
Category: Photography Exhibition
Location: 1517 W Girard Avenue
Date & Time: Coming soon 

The Pyramid Club served as a pivotal space for Black professionals, artists, and intellectuals during an era of racial segregation, embodying Alain Locke's "New Negro" philosophy through artistic freedom and integrated cultural exchange. As the club's official photographer, John W. Mosley documented this vibrant community, capturing legendary figures like Duke Ellington, Josephine Baker, and Marian Anderson alongside the club's annual art exhibitions featuring work by Selma Burke, Romare Bearden, Beauford Delaney, Dox Thrash, Laura Wheeler Waring and many others.

The Pyramid Club exhibition presents a multidisciplinary exploration of Philadelphia's historic Pyramid Club, a cornerstone of Black cultural and social life from 1937 to 1963. Through the photography of John W. Mosley, artwork produced during that period, and multimedia elements, the exhibition reveals how this private social club became a vital space for artistic expression, cultural exchange, and community empowerment during the height of segregation. The exhibition uniquely spans two locations—the original Pyramid Club site and Temple Contemporary—creating a dialogue between past and present through historical objects and contemporary interpretation.

This exhibition represents a unique opportunity to illuminate a vital chapter in Philadelphia's cultural history while forging connections between historical legacy and contemporary relevance. By bringing together extraordinary collections with innovative presentation approaches, the exhibition honors both the artistic contributions and community-building power of this landmark institution. Through this multifaceted exploration, visitors will gain insight into how spaces of leisure and cultural engagement served as sites of resistance, affirmation, and empowerment during a pivotal era in African American history.

SlowDrag
Artists: Mendi + Keith Obadike
Category: Mobile Sound Installation
Location: Coming soon
Date & Time: Coming soon

SlowDrag is a unique public art project created by artists Mendi and Keith Obadike. It is a mobile community-powered sound installation that takes the form of a procession of cars playing synchronized, original music through high-end sound systems. The project aims to encircle Black communities with a slow love song, creating a moving, immersive sound experience.

Grover Washington Jr. Tribute Concert
Artist: Christopher R. Rogers, Ph.D
Category: Concert
Location: The Yard at John Coltrane Street, 1517 N 33rd St
Date & Time: Friday, July 25th, 7:00-9:00PM

Born in Buffalo, NY, but maintaining a very special connection with North Philadelphia, Grover Washington Jr.'s mix of jazz and rhythm and blues soon made him a legendary musician, composer, performer, and one of Philadelphia’s musical ambassadors to the world. In this one-night-only offering, Black Buttafly and the Nu School Collective reactivate, remix, and improvise upon some of the signature grooves he brought into the world. Hosted at the newly renovated Yard on John Coltrane Street, this performance seeks to celebrate and renew North Philadelphia’s Black musical legacies. 

Strawberry Mansion Photography Exhibition and "Pass the Mic"
Artist: Christopher R. Rogers, Ph.D
Category: Photography Exhibition
Location: Strawberry Mansion Learning Center, 2946 W Dauphin St
Date & Time: Saturday, July 26th, 12:00-4:00PM

Scribe Video Center and Friends of the Tanner House in partnership with the Strawberry Mansion Learning Center present a unique multigenerational community storytelling event in honor of the North Philadelphia History Festival, featuring a temporary exhibition of a curated set of historical Strawberry Mansion neighborhood images. What stories emerge from us having revisited these images and the periods of neighborhood life they represent? This opportunity for a neighborhood story circle seeks to bring about more opportunities to share the beauty of our everyday lives in community. 

(Return Home) Installation w/ Friends of the Tanner House
Artist: Christopher R. Rogers, Ph.D
Category: Visual Installation
Location: 2908 W Diamond Street
Date & Time: Thursday July 24th - Sunday July 27th

Supported by the North Philadelphia History Festival, Scribe Video Center partners with the Friends of the Tanner House for a unique temporary exhibition on the exterior facade of 2908 W. Diamond St, installing historical images of the Tanner family as redesign and rehabilitation efforts of the home continue into 2026. The exhibition is named for Tanner’s Crossing the Atlantic (Return Home) (1894).

Old School Philly: Reminiscing with Dottie Smith Gayle's Jazz Community
Artists: Malkia Lydia and Ryan Saunders
Category: Video Installation
Location: New Barber's Hall, 1402 W Oxford Street
Date & Time: Coming soon
 

In 2001-2002, Philadelphia filmmakers Ryan Saunders and Malkia Lydia produced a half-hour documentary in collaboration with local jazz icon Dottie Smith Gayle. Mother Dot's Philadelphia recorded conversations with several elder jazz musicians of the day, as well as informal performances, jam sessions and social gatherings. On Sunday nights, North Philadelphia's Barber's Hall was the gathering spot for many of Smith-Gayle's cohort and their stories helped revive the memory of the legendary postwar jazz scene along North Philly's Columbia Avenue (now Cecil B. Moore.) Over 20 years later as part of the North Philadelphia History Festival, the filmmakers present this four-channel video installation of excerpts from their raw analog tapes. The original Mother Dot's Philadelphia aired on WYBE's Philadelphia Stories, a series created by Executive Producer Hébert Peck. The film was also supported by the Leeway Foundation.

Places of Power - Villa Africana Colobó Garden

Artists: Iris Brown, Norris Square Neighborhood Project & Anula Shetty and Michael Kuetemeyer, Termite TV Collective
Category: AR Installation
Location: Villa Africana Colobó Garden, 2267 N Palethorp St
Date & Time: Saturday, July 26th - Reception: 12-2PM , Open Hours/Tours: 11-6PM

Places of Power is an immersive AR/VR documentary, public art, and community media project that celebrates the West African diaspora in Puerto Rican culture and the legacy of Grupo Motivos, a group of Puerto Rican women who transformed vacant city lots into vibrant community gardens. Project Directors Anula Shetty, Iris Brown, and Michael Kuetemeyer facilitated workshops with long-term residents to share the oral histories and memories of the Latine community in North Philadelphia. Come and explore the augmented reality artwork and stories embedded in this special garden. The project is a collaboration of Termite TV Collective and the Norris Square Neighborhood Project. Visit the interactive virtual tour at https://termite.org/colobo

it be your own people
Artist: muthi reed
Category: Video Installation
Location: Sorellina at the Divine Lorraine, 699 N. Broad St
Date & Time: Thursday, July 24th - Sunday, August 3rd

it be your own people is a cinematic assembly of reference materials contextualizing the love needed to thrive particular to people in a city called Philadelphia, and even more particular to Black North Philadelphians. We make a shrine for ourselves as descendants channeling the energy of those millions of Black folx who left the american South, fleeing the predetermined violence of that space. Traveling a calibrating sequencing of images and symbols, we generate a shrine for the lovers- my maternal Grandparents who met in the 1940s as temporary residents and newly immigrated UpSouth workers at the Divine Lorraine Hotel. Media materials are assembled, disassembled and assembled again to articulate the world of its subjects. The calibrating environment is created in collaboration with an ensemble of writers, family members, technicians and rhythm keepers. This work is a meditation of relationship, intervention, devotion, critical fabulation, chromotherapy, ecology, possibility, desire and difficulty.

reForm
Artist: Pepón Osorio
Category: Video Installation
Location: Cicala at the Divine Lorraine, 699 N. Broad St
Date & Time: Thursday July 24th - Sunday, August 3rd

reForm (2015) is an exhibition and community project that became a testimony of collective frustration many experienced after the abrupt closing of Fairhill Elementary School. As a participatory project between the artist Pepón Osorio and students, teachers, parents, and administrators of Fairhill Elementary School and Temple University, the group placed chalkboards, desks, chairs and mementos left behind by the Philadelphia School District onto the bed of a truck and moved these items into the Tyler School of Art and Architecture where they repurposed a university classroom with the relocated material. The exhibition intended to kick off a whole new wave of community gatherings on the subject of the closing of Fairhill Elementary. The video, titled Jacob, is a provocative reflection of a student writing on an actual Fairhill Elementary school blackboard his concern with the after-effects of this educational epidemic. The video is based on a real life experience, by a student that participated in the project.