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Title
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The 100 Negroes Who Do Most To Build Philadelphia
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Description
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Color Magazine, February 1950.
Ira James Kohath Wells (1898–1997), founder of Color magazine, was born in Tamo, Arkansas. He earned a business degree from Lincoln University in 1923, where he co-founded the Colored Student Movement and joined the Student Anti-Lynching delegation to President Warren Harding.
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After working for the Pittsburgh Courier, he moved to West Virginia, teaching in the segregated school system before serving as the state’s first Supervisor of Negro Education (1933–1952), advocating for Black-controlled schools and improved conditions for African American students. Wells earned a master’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1944 and received honorary doctorates from Lincoln and Allen Universities (Libraries, n.d.).
That same year, he launched Color, the first African American pictorial magazine, which at its height rivaled Ebony with more than 100,000 subscribers. A committed advocate for African unity, Wells traveled extensively on the continent, founded the Friends of Africa and America, and wrote widely on the African diaspora. In the 1970s, he established Cheyney State University’s Black Studies program and, in 1985, received the Distinguished West Virginian Award. He died December 26, 1997, in Germantown, Pennsylvania (Barnard 2023b).
On March 12, 1946, President Truman met with a West Virginia delegation from Color magazine for a photo op and received a complimentary copy of its fourth edition. Present were owner Ira Wells and Thester Coleman and W.D. Coleman—one of whom was known as “Sippi,” likely a nickname derived from Mississippi. Sippi served as the magazine’s editor and publisher. The paraphrased statement below, shared with President Truman, best reflects Wells’s vision for Color magazine.
“Because COLOR seeks to promote goodwill between races, improve readers’ work habits and attitudes, enhance personal development, and honor the dignity of labor and everyday occupations as championed by Booker T. Washington—while also aiming to educate, inspire, and entertain—and as it is the first four-color magazine published for the Negro race during President Truman’s administration, it is befitting to present this historic issue to the President of the United States” (Daily Appointments of Harry S.Truman 1946).
Here’s an alphabetical listing of named Philadelphia Black leaders, notice that some practiced in multiple fields.
Dr. Sadie T. M. Alexander (first Black woman to receive a PhD, lawyer, civic leader, state Democratic committee member)
Raymond P. Alexander (lawyer)
The Augstines (catering family)
Rev. Leonard Carr (minister, former president of the State Baptist Association)
Rev. Dr. William A. Cramer (minister, Mount Carmel Baptist Church)
Rev. Luther Cunningham (minister, St. Paul Baptist Church)
Father Divine (religious leader, interracial advocate)
The Dutrieuille family (catering family)
Daddy Grace (House of Prayer Church, interracial advocacy)
Reverend Dr. W. Haggard (minister, Mt. Carmel Baptist Church)
Leslie P. Hill, 3rd (lawyer)
Rev. E. T. Lewis (minister, NAACP leader, president of Baptist Ministers’ Conference)
Mercer L. Lewis (lawyer)
Rev. John R. Logan, Sr. (minister)
Herbert Millen (first Black judge in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania)
Lewis Tanner Moore, district attorney (lawyer)
John Newman (catering business leader)
Robert N.C. Nix, attorney (law)
J. Austin Norris (journalist, politician, lawyer, Board of Assessors member)
E. Washington Rhodes (journalist, publisher of The Philadelphia Tribune)
Magistrate Hobson R. Reynolds (civic, political, fraternal union leader)
Rev. Arthur E. Rankin (minister)
Jack Saunders (lawyer)
Rev. Marshall L. Shepard (minister, Mt. Oliver Baptist Church, political leader, D.C. Recorder of Deeds, civic activist)
Theodore Spaulding (lawyer)
The Trowers family (catering family)
William (Bill) Upsher (funeral director, political leader)
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Rights
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This work is not in copyright, but commercial uses of this digital representation are limited. For more information, contact blockson@temple.edu and see http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-NC/1.0/
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Creator
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Color Magazine
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Format
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Text
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Language
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eng
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Spatial Coverage
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Philadelphia, PA
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Publisher
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Color Magazine
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Contributor
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Temple University Libraries, Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection
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Date Created
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February 1950
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Is Part Of
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Temple University Libraries, Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection
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Subject
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Civic leaders
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Lawyers
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Clergy
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Caterers and catering
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Politicians
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Magazine illustration--Themes, motives
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Magazine illustration--History
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Labor leaders
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Newspaper publishing
