Annette John-Hall: Two Philadelphians in King's footsteps get their due

Like most civil rights activists, Kenneth "Freedom Smitty" Salaam never cared about money or fame. All he wanted was justice for all.

He dropped out of Edison High in the '60s to devote his time to marching for the rights of black students to be admitted to Girard College, and later risked his life for civil rights by marching with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. throughout the South during the last years of King's life.

For Salaam, "It's not about ego. It's about we-go."

And these days, probably nothing symbolizes Salaam's passion for activism more than the Martin Luther King Day of Service. Organizer Todd Bernstein estimates a record 85,000 volunteers are slated to work on 1,300 community service projects around the region.

So it wasn't surprising to see Salaam sitting front and center at Girard College - the project's main site - for last week's kickoff ceremony. If there's anybody who knows a little something about Girard College, it's the man Dr. King fondly called "Freedom."

The real surprise came when Mayor Nutter presented Salaam, 62, the Harris Wofford Active Citizenship Award.

Salaam, visibly moved, joked, "The only other time I've cried was when the police were whipping me."

"Ken has been behind the scenes so long . . . he's never given up," Bernstein says. "He's been a quiet warrior for social change."

That's the challenge with any movement. Change comes only with continuous struggle. Cecil B. Moore, the Philadelphia lawyer and NAACP president who organized the picket line against Girard, paved the way for students like Salaam. Now Salaam visits schools to pass down his civil rights stories to the students.

Not only that, it was Salaam's efforts that eventually led in part to the hiring of Autumn Graves, Girard's first African American president.

You know the old axiom: No struggle, no progress. And as Dr. King knew all too well, progress depended on building coalitions of like-minded people committed to the struggle.

Which brings us to Bernstein.

As Bernstein orchestrated accolades for Salaam last week, he sat on his own secret: He had been summoned to the White House to receive the Champions of Change award for following in the footsteps of Dr. King.

It's a well-deserved honor. Talk about energy. Go anywhere in the city and you're likely to run into the 54-year-old Bernstein. Usually, he's volunteering through Global Citizen, the organization he founded that's dedicated to promoting civic engagement.

Last spring, I joined Bernstein and a group of volunteers to clean up Eden Cemetery in Collingdale, the nation's oldest African African public cemetery, as part of his MLK365 initiative.

Sure, he's gotten his share of flak from skeptical black folks leery of a white guy interloping on their issues.

"I understand where the anger comes from," the Mount Airy native says. "I don't try to dismiss it. I try to better understand it."

Case in point: Some years ago, Reggie Bryant, fiery talk-show host at now-defunct WHAT radio, called Bernstein out about his King Day organizing and dared him to call in to his show. Bernstein did, and the two men eventually became friends.

So close, in fact, that Bernstein smuggled hot dogs into Bryant's room while the journalist lay in a hospital terminally ill with colon cancer. Now Bernstein is leading the charge to raise money for a headstone for Bryant's grave at Eden Cemetery.

"It's the way I live my life," Bernstein says of his activism. "If we're concerned about the most critical needs, we need to harness the available resources and build partnerships and discover the commonality we all have."

Surely Bernstein's view is nothing new. It's a model passed down from King, from Moore, from Salaam.

After all, progress operates on a continuum.