Philadelphia activist keeping Martin Luther King Jr.'s message at Girard College alive 6 decades later
In the summer of 1965, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stood outside the gates of Girard College to deliver a message that would become one of the most powerful civil rights moments in Philadelphia's history.
"It's a sad experience at this stage in the 20th century," King told demonstrators in August 1965, "to have a kind of Berlin Wall to keep the colored children of God out."
At the time, Girard College admitted only White orphaned boys. King's visit brought national attention to a local fight already well underway, one fueled by young activists who had been marching long before he arrived.
Among them was Kenneth Salaam, also known as "Freedom Smitty."
Salaam was just 15 years old when he joined the movement, marching alongside members of Cecil B. Moore's Young Freedom Fighters. Girard College was his first march, one that would last seven months and 17 days.
Each morning before sunrise, hundreds of police officers surrounded the school. Salaam recalls violent confrontations — tear gas, beatings and even police motorcycles driven into crowds.
Despite the brutality, the movement only grew stronger.
The fight didn't stop at Girard College.
Salaam continued marching for civil rights across the South, including in Mississippi, where his cousin was killed in a Ku Klux Klan ambush.
What the world often labels as civil unrest, Salaam experienced as a community. Families opened their homes. Strangers provided food, clothing and medicine. When the marches ended, supporters raised money to fly the activists back home to Philadelphia.
Over time, Salaam and King developed a personal bond. He remembers King not only as a global leader, but as a man, one he felt comfortable calling "Doc," asking casually for a cigarette.
King's words that day outside Girard College left a lasting imprint.
"Now is the time to straighten up Girard College," King said.
He was fighting for children like Salaam, children who would one day walk through those gates and receive an education once denied to them.
Sixty years later, Salaam continues to share that message with Philadelphia's youth.
"I did not benefit from what I was doing," Salaam said. "When I talk to young people, I tell them, we loved you before we knew you."
Salaam was jailed more times than he can count and was later honored to walk alongside King's casket during the funeral procession.
Today, like King and Cecil B. Moore before him, Salaam is passing the torch, reminding the next generation that meaningful change has always been driven by the young.
"No great change in history has ever been done by old people," he said.