Interview: Edgar Campbell, September 26, 1984

Interview: Edgar Campbell, September 26, 1984

African Americans--Southern States.

Philadelphia (Pa.)--Social life and customs.

African Americans--Politics and government.

Politicians

African American business enterprises

Philadelphia (Pa.)--Social conditions.

African Americans--Social conditions.

African Americans--Segregation

Migration, Internal.

Race discrimination.

United States--Race relations.

Political parties.

Republican Party (Pa.)

Democratic Party (Pa.)

African American leadership

Edgar Campbell (1902-1987) was born and raised in Savannah, Georgia. In 1917, he and his parents joined the Great Migration north, settling first in Baltimore, and soon afterwards in Philadelphia. There, Campbell became active in city politics by passing examinations for public service in 1922 and working his way into the lower echelons of the Republican Party. He came of age in a time where political patronage was essential in the machinery of Philadelphia politics. It was this patronage that drove him into the arms of the Democratic Party in 1926, an act that anticipated their eventual rise to power in Philadelphia in 1936. He continued to serve in Philadelphia’s political circles, where he won election to the City Council in 1967 and in 1975 as Clerk of Quarter Sessions Court. At the age of 80, Campbell in 1982, became the first African-American Chairman of Philadelphia's Democratic City Committee.

1984-09-26

audio

2014OH156GN008

Charles Hardy

Edgar Campbell

African Americans--Societies, etc.

African American churches

African Americans--Housing.

Political corruption

African Americans--Economic conditions.

Depressions--1929.