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The 400 Legacy Project
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As a collective effort, the 400 Legacy Project offers opportunities for individuals, organizations, and corporations to participate as volunteers to help build better communities and create a thriving environment for living, learning, and growing.
Preserving our Legacy
Sign Our Petition
Dear Supporters,
I am Rudy Simpson, the President of The 400 Leadership Council. We are a youth lead organization developed by I.C.A.R.E. Academy and The 400 years Coalition. For the past 5 years, our organizations along with KIPP Dubois have been educating the community on the teachings and the life and times of the Late W.E.B. Dubois.
For his contribution to Humanity and untiring commitment to Education and help to preserve history, this year during African American History month we honored his legacy by naming the last Monday in February of each year as W.E.B. Dubois Day in Philadelphia. By educating others, he helped to advance the development of the Human Race.
To preserve his legacy The 400 Leadership Council created the W.E.B. Dubois Day to honor those leaders who continue in his legacy. We are true examples of The Talented Tenth which Dubois often spoke about in his writings. Your help for us to get the resolution passed will help us set the precedent for our tomorrow. Education is the passport to the future.
Senator Vincent Hughes, Senator Sharif Street, Mayor Jim Kenney, Dr. Charles Blockson, Councilwoman Janie Blackwell and Councilman Curtis Jones are all amongst a total of 55 prominent individuals who are all previous recipients of the W.E.B. DuBois Award for the outstanding work they do in our communities.
In February of 2020 we were successful in getting the resolution passed through the City Council Philadelphia, locally deeming the Last Monday of February as W.E.B. Dubois Day. We need your help extending our effort to get the day recognized on a national level.
We appreciate all of the great work you have done to help lay a foundation for generations to come. I look forward to your participation as we step together to move forward. Below please sign the petition below to help support the proposed resolution. Thank you in advance for your assistance.
Rudy Simpson
President
The 400 Leadership Council
“ Education must not simply teach work-it must teach life.” W.E.B. Dubois
Proposed Resolution
Honoring, recognizing, and congratulating W.E.B. DuBois on his contributions to higher education, preserving African American history, and his study of African American life. His service to highlight education, economics, and culture helps to maintain, sustain, and preserve life for descendants of American Slaves and their lineage.
In his honor, we are naming the last Monday of February of each year as “W.E.B. DuBois Day” in the City of Philadelphia.
WHEREAS, William Edward Burghardt DuBois, better known as W.E.B. DuBois, was born on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, he later relocated to Philadelphia, off of 6th and South, where a historical marker now stands. There, he published his landmark study — the first case study of an African-American community — The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study, marking the beginning of his expansive writing career. In the study, he coined the phrase "the Talented Tenth," a term that describes the likelihood of one in 10 Black men becoming leaders of their race.
WHEREAS, An original edition of The Philadelphia Negro, and other official documents and writings of Dubois, are archived at the Blockson Collection at Temple University in Philadelphia, and a mural in his honor is painted on the wall of Engine Company No. 11 along South Street.
WHEREAS, In 1885, he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to attend Fisk University and completed his master's degree.
WHEREAS, DuBois was selected for a study-abroad program at the University of Berlin. While a pupil in Germany, he studied with some of the most prominent social scientists of his day and was exposed to political perspectives.
WHEREAS, In 1895, W.E.B. DuBois became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard.
WHEREAS, In 1903, DuBois published his seminal work, The Souls of Black Folk, a collection of literature that DuBois wrote extensively, and was the best-known spokesperson for African-American rights during the first half of the 20th Century.
WHEREAS, In 1909, DuBois co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and served as editor of its monthly magazine, The Crisis.
WHEREAS, DuBois helped organize several Pan-African Congresses to free African colonies from European powers.
WHEREAS, W.E.B. DuBois died on August 27, 1963 — one day before Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington — at the age of 95, in Accra, Ghana, while working on an encyclopedia of the African Diaspora.
WHEREAS, 2018 was coined “The Year of DuBois” in Philadelphia to mark the 150th Anniversary of the late W.E.B. DuBois.
WHEREAS, In 2014, The 400 Youth Leadership Team of I.C.A.R.E. Academy created the annual W.E.B. DuBois Day event to educate the City of Philadelphia and other youth on W.E.B. DuBois, his philosophy and social study of The Philadelphia Negro, to recognize the evolution of the Philadelphia Negro, while acknowledging those whose leadership supports the advancement of positive human life through education.
WHEREAS, In January 2020, The City Council of Philadelphia Unanimously Adopted the resolution deeming the Last Monday of each February as W.E.B. Dubois Day in Philadelphia.
NOW THEREFORE We Asked THAT "We continue to honor, recognize and congratulate W.E.B. Dubois on his contribution to uplift and preserving human life through Education and name The Last Monday of every February as W.E.B. Dubois Day Nationally"
SIGN THE PETITION BELOW
