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Honoring and recognizing the service and leadership of retired nurse, activist, and current President of the Cecil B. Moore Freedom Fighters, Karen Asper Jordan, who has led a life-long commitment to civil rights activism by protesting, picketing, marching, registering voters, and leading countless direct actions under the guidance and, later, inspiration of the legendary civil rights leader, Cecil B. Moore.
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WHEREAS, Karen Asper Jordan was born and raised in North Philadelphia where she attended Philadelphia's Reynolds Elementary School, Vaux Junior High School, and Simon Gratz High School; and
WHEREAS, At the age of sixteen, Asper Jordan was one of hundreds of young Philadelphians who, in May 1965, were mobilized by Cecil B. Moore to picket outside the walls of Girard College. At that time, Girard College continued to defy the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision ordering the school to desegregate. Asper Jordan, an original member of what Cecil B. Moore called his "young militants," picketed these walls throughout the entire summer of 1965; and
WHEREAS, After thirteen weeks of fighting to desegregate Girard College, during which she sang freedom songs and saw Philadelphia police brutalize her friends and fellow protestors, Asper Jordan joined thousands to watch Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. take up their cause. Standing in front of Girard College, the massive stone fortress that had been established as a whites-only school in the 19th century, Dr. King declared the college wall "a kind of a Berlin Wall to keep the colored children of God out"; and
WHEREAS, This historic protest, that Asper Jordan helped lead, became the longest sustained civil rights action in Philadelphia history, lasting seven months and seventeen days. After the protest finally ended in December 1965, Asper Jordan and other young militants became known as Cecil B. Moore Philadelphia Freedom Fighters, a relentless group of young Philadelphians who began a ...
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