BAHAMAS CHRONICLE ECITOR’S NOTE: My good friend Leon Dash, a former award-winning reporter at the Washington Post, reposted a collection of historic photos on Facebook that were originally posted by Sheila Hopkins on Philadelphia’s Pyramid Club, which was founded in 1937. As a dyed-in-the wool student of Black History, I absolutely had to share some of these astonishing photos and the accompanying narrative with readers of my, Washington, D.C. — based online publication, BAHAMAS CHRONICLE, which has a huge following among Bahamians the diaspora across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom as well as in The Bahamas and the wider Caribbean.
The photos were posted with the following narrative:
The Pyramid Club was founded in 1937 by prominent black lawyers, doctors, and businessmen for the cultural, civic, and social advancement of African Americans, who were barred from many of Philadelphia’s restaurants, clubs, and social organizations because of their black skin.
Club members, who represented a cross section of the city’s African-American community, purchased a building at 1517 Girard Ave. in 1940, which they renovated for the purpose of hosting social and cultural events.
The club was for men only, but women could attend events held at the site. There was also a Ladies Auxiliary, a Pyramid Wives Club, and a Women’s Coordinating Committee. Women could also serve on the club’s exhibition committee, which helped to select and organize exhibitions.
Black-owned, operated, and financed, the exclusive club contained reception rooms, meeting rooms, a dining room, and a membership lounge known as the Crystal Bar. The membership fee was $120 (around $2,200 in 2019) and monthly dues were $2.40 (around $44 in 2019). By the mid-1940s, the club had 350 members. All members were required to join the NAACP.
Programming consisted of music festivals, art exhibitions, cooking demonstrations, parties, luncheons, lectures, and guest speakers. The annual art exhibition, held from 1941-1957, showcased the work of up-and-coming African-American artists from Philadelphia and New York. Every year, the club published a popular pictorial album illuminating the life and times of black Philadelphians.
Famous faces at the club included poet Langston Hughes, songstress Marion Anderson, actress and dancer Josephine Baker, educator and philanthropist Mary McLeod Bethune, civil rights activist A. Philip Randolph, and legendary musicians Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.
The club closed in 1963.
BAHAMAS CHRONICLE EDITOR’S NOTE: I first met Leon Dash in 2006 when I was editor of The Freeport News and he signed a contractual agreement with The Nassau Guardian, which owns The Freeport News, to become an editorial consultant. That decision was made by the late Sir Charles Carter shortly after he was appointed Publisher of The Guardian in 2006.
Sir Charles and Leon had attended High School together in New York and both had established successful careers in journalism. While Leon had established a very successful career as journalist on The Washington Post, Sir Charles became a renowned Bahamian broadcast journalist, and he realized that the challenges that lie ahead as publisher of one of The Bahamas’ leading daily newspapers required the advice and support of someone who had experience in the print aspect of the Fourth Estate. Therefore, he placed a phone call to his old high school buddy, Leon Dash, and convinced the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who had become a professor of journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to visit Nassau to discuss the possibility of becoming an editorial consultant for The Guardian.
Given his pioneering background in helping to “tear down” racial barriers in journalism at the Washington Post, Professor Dash almost immediately devised and established a journalistic training program at The Guardian after he became a consultant. He took his training program one step further by arranging for several young reporters at The Guardian, who had undergraduate degrees, to obtain scholarships at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to study for their Master’s Degree in journalism.
