West Mount Airy: Pioneering Racial Integration

Guests: Abigail Perkiss, Joan Cannady Countryman, Christie Balka

In the 1950s and 1960s, West Mount Airy became one of the first intentionally-integrated communities in the country.  In many places, white residents and realtors were fighting to exclude African-American families.  But West Mount Airy was different and became a model for racial integration.  ABIGAIL PERKISS is an historian and Assistant Professor at Kean University in New Jersey.  She grew up in West Mount Airy and has written a book about it, Making Good Neighbors: Civil Rights, Liberalism, and Integration in Postwar Philadelphia.  JOAN CANNADY COUNTRYMAN was the first African-American student to graduate from Germantown Friends School in the 1950s. And CHRISTIE BALKA grew up in West Mount Airy too; her parents pioneered to create a diverse community.