Listening for the Invisible: Director describes the foundation, essence of “Ephraim Slaughter: Freedom’s Witness”

January 29, 2026 | by Teresa Miller

Sharia Benn, Marcus McGhee, Melinda Anderson

The first thing Director Sharia Benn noticed when she encountered “Ephraim Slaughter: Freedom’s Witness” was not spectacle, but restraint.

The play opens without fanfare, with warmth, whispers and a man who watches before he speaks. For Benn, Ephraim’s deliberate quietness was not a stylistic choice but a philosophical one. A man who survived enslavement, war and a system built for erasure does not announce himself loudly. He inventories. He hums. He exists in the spaces history never bothered to record.

That attention to what is felt rather than seen became the foundation of Benn’s directorial approach. “Ephraim Slaughter” is a play populated by voices and presences that do not physically appear—overseers, generals, wives, descendants, futures.

Rather than compensating for absence with theatrical excess, Benn leaned into listening as a discipline. Rehearsal became an exercise in observation of set, costume, sound and breath. The actors were asked to generate interior life so dense that absence itself gained weight.

“Typically, we stage what can be seen,” Benn explained. “This play is an architecture of absence.”

That absence carries historical meaning. The enslaved, the foot soldiers, the women in kitchens, these lives were systematically excluded from documentation. The production honors that reality not by making absence spectacular, but by allowing the audience to feel its pressure.

Time also operates differently in this work. Ephraim does not exit the stage as decades pass; instead, time accumulates in his body. Benn directed the play not as chronology but as layering. Each scene deposits memory into Ephraim’s posture, breath and hands. The same chest that once stood tall enough to contradict a general now carries 97 years of remembering. Hands that once loaded rifles now fold napkins with reverence.

Actor Marcus McGhee, who embodies Ephraim, was asked to carry each moment forward rather than reset between scenes. Violence and tenderness coexist in the same body. When Ephraim speaks of love, the memory of mud and marching boots has not vanished—it lives alongside it. Melinda Anderson as Yvonne Pittman/Narrator serves as a living witness, grounding the story in inherited memory while Afrofuturistic Voices arrive from a future already shaped by Ephraim’s resistance. Past, present and future speak together, refusing linear containment.

This approach reframes Ephraim not as a heroic survivor but as a witness. Benn resisted the impulse to mythologize suffering, choosing instead what she calls “radical ordinariness.” Folding a napkin is not elevated into metaphor. It is an act of care, precise and unadorned. Love is conveyed through facts, laughter, flour-dusted hands, a hum. The audience is trusted to recognize beauty without being instructed where to find it.

Silence plays an equally vital role. When Ephraim refuses to name an overseer, the pause is not defiance but mercy. Naming would give oxygen to someone who does not deserve it. Silence becomes an act of protection, a refusal to feed the past its hunger for attention.

The play’s final question is not comforting. Benn hopes audiences leave unsettled, implicated and listening differently. “Who am I invisible to?” “Who am I refusing to see?” Ephraim’s testimony does not offer closure. It interrupts erasure, if only temporarily, and demands that attention continue beyond the theater.

Making the invisible visible, Benn insists, is not about revelation or spectacle. It is about a shift in how and whom we choose to see.

“Ephraim Slaughter: Freedom’s Witness” runs Feb. 14 to 22 at Gamut Theatre, 15 N. 4th St., Harrisburg, presented by Sankofa African American Theatre Company and Gamut Theatre Group, in partnership with the National Civil War Museum. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.gamuttheatre.org/sankofa.

UPCOMING EVENTS

At Gamut Theatre
www.gamuttheatre.org
717-238-4111

“Ephraim Slaughter: Freedom’s Witness”
In partnership with Sankofa African American Theatre Company and the National Civil War Museum
Feb. 14 to 22

TMI Improv Comedy Show
Feb. 27 at 7:30 p.m.

If you like what we do, please support our work. Become a Friend of TheBurg!

Creative Connections: Harrisburg’s leaders of color create community through art, culture

January 29, 2026 | by Bob MacGinnes

Pictured, from left: Claire Berlus, Roe Braddy, Chantal Nga Eloundou, Contrena Baltimore, Donovan Bailey, Reverend Nathaniel Gadsden, James Berlus, Maria James-Thiaw, Dr. Kimeka Campbell, Reina 76. Photo by John Bivins

I am privileged to write about a special group—leaders of color, all at the top of their chosen fields. From business professionals to poets to community builders and artists, all are working independently and together for positive change in Harrisburg.

The Communicators

Dr. Kimeka Campbell’s name is synonymous with positive change in Harrisburg.

Drawing on her vast background as a political adviser, healthcare strategist, nonprofit leader and cultural storyteller, Campbell uses her voice to create a better life for her community. At the Harrisburg Regional Chamber & CREDC’s 2024 Catalyst Awards, she won “Diversity Influencer of the Year” for her role as host of Black NewsBeat and cofounder of Young Professionals of Color-Greater Harrisburg.

“My future is focused on building communities where belonging is the starting point,” Campbell shared. “Not the reward.”

This focus was born in her college days at Penn State University, where she remembers watching Black and Brown students “link arms and create change wherever they stood.”

“I wanted to be part of that kind of power,” she said.

Campbell, who earned a Ph.D. in adult and comparative international education at PSU, said she leaned into this in graduate school.

“I started studying how people build community out of whatever they have and wherever they are,” she said.

She learned that, sometimes, tensions and contradictions work against creating connection.

“That is when I understood my calling,” she said. “My work is to create belonging and connectedness that helps people bond and move the entire community forward.”

Rovenia “Roe” Braddy is at the top of her game as an author, a playwright, a director and the editor-in-chief of Black Wall Street PA.

Braddy oversees the news publication, which is designed for people of color, yet appreciated by all. As a retired educator, she espouses a voice of clarity and conviction.

“We can’t do this alone. We need each other,” she said. “No man, woman or child is an island.”

She is also a social justice poet and a theatrical producer, director and playwright, as well as an award-winning romance novel author.

As a community board member for Sankofa African American Theatre Company and Nathaniel Gadsden’s Writers Wordshop, her impact on our region is felt across the disciplines of art.

“Community has always been my thing. I like being around people,” she said. “I am someone who thrives off the energy of my surroundings.”

As the place where she’s discovered her calling, built a home and a family, and found her tribe, she considers Harrisburg a great surrounding.

“Harrisburg is my community,” she said. “Let’s get together, stay strong, and help our city to thrive.”

A transplant from Seattle, Wash., celebrated poet, author and playwright, Maria James-Thiaw is a treasured gift to Harrisburg.

James-Thiaw fell in love with poetry as a child. Her late father, Richard James, was a published poet, so it was natural for her to pay tribute to him through verse. Awards followed as early as the age of six.

“Poetry can teach us to understand and use language in a more precise and visual way,” James-Thiaw said. “It can teach us about the history and culture of a people. It can teach us to listen and to have empathy for one another. Poetry is as old as humanity and as new as tomorrow’s news.”

James-Thiaw was mentored by Harrisburg poetry pioneers Rev. Nathaniel Gadsden and Marty Esworthy. She received a Legacy Award from The National Black Writers Tour and in 2014 won a Catalyst Award for “Business Diversity” from the Harrisburg Regional Chamber & CREDC.

The Civic Club of Harrisburg’s president Contrena Baltimore has been a valued part of the community since 1991.

She has implemented programs at the club to embody unity, empowerment and cultural pride.

“My focus continues to center on service, education and collaboration—values that reflect my lifelong belief: ‘It’s bigger than us,’” she said. “I’m grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the Civic Club’s enduring legacy and to help build bridges that strengthen our community for generations to come.”

Contrena made history as the Civic Club’s first Black president. Among her inaugural initiatives were the installation of the Women’s History Garden, a tribute to the club’s legacy of women leaders. Prior, she founded the Keystone Math and Science Academy and served as its director for over a decade.

Creators, Artisans and a Bridge

When it comes to branding a business, it is hard to keep up with the Joneses. If you have a brilliant idea but need help reaching a client base, look no further than Collab Create HBG, owned by Ivan and Paige Jones. The space offers studios for photography and videography, audio booths, co-working space and office rentals.

“We’re building a collaborative home where creators connect, businesses flourish and innovative ideas come to life,” said the couple. “We love being a part of people’s journeys and supporting their ideas as they turn them into reality.”

Another artistic Harrisburg couple are Haitian-born James and Claire Berlus.

“As a couple, we share a special bond of creation. It transcends love and speaks to a feeling that you can’t put into words,” James said.

James is among a stellar group of artists that comprise the Civic Club’s United Artists Advisory Council. James draws on his experience as a video and graphic designer, web producer and photographer to bring technical mastery and historical awareness to the art he creates of his home country.

Claire also creates ethereal paintings. Their work encapsulates Haiti’s struggle, resilience and will to thrive.

Artist Donovan Bailey is a photographer, typographer and graphic designer.

“My aim is to create work that feels authentic, energized by the worlds that inspire me,” he said, noting that beauty is often found in unexpected places.

He is also a ceramist who creates Raku and Kintsugi-inspired pottery. Both Japanese pottery techniques involve unique, cracked finishes.

“True beauty lies in its imperfections,” he said.

Located on N. 3rd Street, Nyianga Store has roots thousands of miles away in Africa.

“The store that I call home extends the whole way to Cameroon,” said its owner, Chantal Nga Eloundou.

Eloundou brings her culture to Harrisburg, selling African goods. She established the store in 2018, selling clothing, jewelry, ornamental masks, beauty products and art.

All merchandise is made by hand.

“My mission is to be the bridge between African and American,” she said.

Hall of Fame

Rev. Nathaniel Gadsden is a former poet laureate of Harrisburg, who has carved a path for countless writers, poets and playwrights in the area as a community leader.

He founded an eponymous Writer’s Wordshop in 1977, which he refers to as his “gift from God for the past 48 years.”

“Through it, I found my voice, established a platform for poets and writers of all genres, and made friends with talented, creative, servant leaders who want to change the world with words and storytelling,” Gadsden said.

He attributes forward progress in his life to many of its members.

“Their vision, perspective and cultural lens, which is reflected in their poetic voice and storytelling, has helped me to grow spiritually,” he said. “I can truly say I have developed a better sense of cultural humility, and tolerance of ‘the other’ because of its participants.”

Epilogue

It helps to have a game changer in your life; we could all benefit from one.

My art world catalyst is someone I regard as a friend, Reina R76. In last February’s issue, I wrote that she coordinated the artists profiled, and, this year, she masterminded the effort too. She sincerely wants her entire community to be successful and does all in her power to make that happen.

A kinetic force at studio #104 at Millworks, Reina is truly an original one-of-a-kind. Her goal is that all people of color get their opportunity to shine on the stage of our city of Harrisburg.

If you like what we do, please support our work. Become a Friend of TheBurg!

History, Restored: Gettysburg’s first Black history museum will highlight the area’s vibrant community

January 29, 2026 | by Stephanie Kalina-Metzger

Jack Hopkins

Gettysburg and American history go hand in hand, but one group of people often has been left out of the story.

Soon, that will change, as the Hopkins House Museum is set to become the town’s first museum devoted entirely to Black history.

Once home to Jack and Julia Hopkins, the 1840s log cabin is the last surviving Civil War-era house in Gettysburg historically owned by Black residents. The cabin, which was dilapidated and condemned just a few years ago, is in the process of being restored and expanded with a state-of-the-art museum addition, which will tell the story of Gettysburg’s Black community from slavery to the present day.

Celebrating Community

Jack Hopkins, a well-known figure in the Gettysburg community, worked for more than two decades as a janitor at what is now Gettysburg College.

“He was very much loved by the students and the faculty,” said Jean Howard-Green, president of the Lincoln Cemetery Project Association and a trustee of the local history nonprofit, Gettysburg History. “It was called the PA College at that time. When you read his obituary, you can see that they gave him an honorary VP title.”

Hopkins’ son, Edward, fought with the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War.

“The fact that they fought for their country, despite not being fully recognized as citizens themselves, speaks to their caliber,” Howard-Green said.

Edward later went on to become Gettysburg’s first Black elected official.

As a Gettysburg native, Howard-Green is well-versed in the aspects of the area’s history that have been overlooked and believes the museum will fill in those gaps.

“We want people to know what our little community was all about—from slavery to the Civil Rights Movement and beyond,” she said. “At one time, we were relegated to three streets—but they were three incredible streets.”

Those streets boasted everything the community needed: barbershops, restaurants, pool halls and other amenities.

“That’s what made living in this area great—we had things to do and places to go,” she said.

Howard-Green added that, although those streets were predominantly Black, they did live alongside white neighbors.

“We lived peaceably with each other,” she said.

Andrew Dalton, CEO and president of Gettysburg History, said that the museum will highlight lesser-known figures like Mag Palm, a local washerwoman and Underground Railroad figure who fought off kidnappers, even biting off one attacker’s thumb. Another is Basil Biggs, a tenant farmer and self-taught veterinarian, whose grim job during the Civil War was to disinter and re-bury about 3,000 Union soldiers after the Battle of Gettysburg.

Dalton said that Black families were largely confined to the Third Ward for decades.

“Realtors wouldn’t show them properties,” he said. “That went on from the beginning of the town’s history and, incredibly, until the 1960s.”

The Hopkins House is partnering with the Lincoln Cemetery Project Association to connect the stories of everyday life with the stories of those buried in the region’s historic Black cemetery, ensuring that Black legacies are honored holistically, both in life and in death.

Collections & Exhibits

During the restoration, crews discovered more than 100 artifacts within the walls of the home.

“We also have artifacts that were donated to the Historical Society over the years,” Dalton said.

Howard-Green added that community contributions continue to play a role.

“We’ve been reaching out to the community for additional artifacts and are gladly in the process of accepting more,” she said.

If anyone has artifacts to share, contact [email protected], she added.

Howard-Green mentioned a recent acquisition—an oral history of an older Black woman, now deceased, who was active in St. Paul AME Zion Church.

The goal of Gettysburg History is to raise $2 million for the museum project. They are currently halfway there thanks to grants and private donations.

Howard-Green said that the project is deeply meaningful to her.

“When you are a person of color and you know your history hasn’t been fully told, to be part of bringing the full story to fruition is something that makes me very happy,” she said.

The Hopkins House Museum is located at 219 S. Washington St., Gettysburg. For more information, including how to donate, visit www.gettysburghistory.org/hopkins-house.

If you like what we do, please support our work. Become a Friend of TheBurg!

Reading, Writing & Representation: Black authors in Harrisburg share their starts, their journeys

January 29, 2026 | by Susan Ryder

Ashley Cecilia Meyer

The Harrisburg area has many Black authors whose literary talents bring their own important perspectives to fiction and nonfiction alike. Floyd Stokes is one of those authors.

Stokes, with over 30 books to his credit, found his way to writing while encouraging young people to read through his Harrisburg-based nonprofit, the American Literacy Corporation.

“I was going to schools and daycares reading to the public, other folks’ books,” Stokes said. “In the midst of that, I found holes.”

Those “holes” were topics or ideas that he thought were missing, where he could contribute.

As a child, he “played with words,” but never really thought he’d write a book. His daughters, Madison and Olivia Stokes, however, influenced by their dad, became authors at a young age. One of their books was “Dress Up.”

“Olivia and I and my dad wrote this book together,” Madison said. “My sister and I were in our room. We were playing dress-up, and we wrote it down and came into the living room and said, ‘Hey, we wrote a book.’”

For author, activist and Messiah University professor Drew Hart, becoming an author was not on his radar as a young person.

“I was not a great student growing up,” Hart said.

He described middle school as “barely passing.”

“There’s nothing that would have pointed me to even once write a book, nonetheless, to imagine writing multiple books by this point,” he said.

His most recent book, “Making It Plain,” published in 2025, discusses the need for Black and Anabaptist Churches—a church history book, but more.

“How do I make these complex church history books that are thick and dense… accessible as possible, while still having some integrity to help them [readers] see a big picture?” Hart said.

Hart’s first book, “Trouble I’ve Seen,” was birthed out of “a feeling out of convictions that I needed to [write about racism],” during the riots after the killing of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old Black man shot by police in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014.

Michele Mitchell

My Babies

Michele Mitchell’s writing journey began as a sort of “finding herself” moment, as she drove her daughter to and from Capital Area School for the Arts in Harrisburg.

“I was praying to God one day, and I was like, ‘Well Lord, you know, what am I to be doing?’” she said.

That’s when the idea for her first book, “She Ain’t Me,” arrived. Mitchell said that the uniqueness of her 15 books comes from their relatability.

“I really try to make my work real and natural as I can, so reflective of what’s happening in society,” she said.

Growing up, she had more acting, songwriting and singing aspirations than becoming an author, but those creative talents flourished in her writing.

Ashley Meyer’s foray into writing began by opening a bookstore in Linglestown to carry more diverse children’s books. She wrote her first book, published in 2024, “The Cottage Witch of Venice,” because “I’m in love with cottages and witches.” Meyer, however, always knew she wanted to be a writer. At 15 years old, “I told my friend I would publish a book,” she said.

For all of these authors, their books are precious to them. “They’re all my babies,” Mitchell said.

When asked if they had a favorite book their answers were similar.

“Whatever one I’m writing at the moment,” Hart said.

Mirrors & Windows

For Floyd Stokes, it’s more about the reading than the writing that makes his books special.

“They only become my favorite when I’m reading them to children,” he said.

Books can take from a couple of weeks to write, for a children’s book, to a couple of years for a novel. There’s a tremendous amount of work that goes into authoring a book, and it’s not always enjoyable.

“I like the first writing, the first draft,” Hart said. “I do feel like the second draft, third draft, all the revision work is work for me. I don’t enjoy going back to it.”

However, caring about what one’s writing about can mitigate the work and sacrifice.

Drew Hart

“I’m usually very passionate about why I’m writing,” Hart said. “There’s something that I feel is very important and want to get out into the world. So, I think that part is energizing for me.”

Passion for photography is what kick-started Olivia Stokes’ latest book, “Secrets of Robins.” She was photographing birds in the yard and focused on a robin’s nest. After noticing the interesting behavior the birds showed in caring for their babies, she made a decision.

“Oh, my goodness—I have to turn this into a book,” she said.

These books offer enjoyment and knowledge, but they also provide an important Black perspective and diverse representation.

Floyd Stokes talked about educator Rudine Sims Bishop’s idea of mirrors and windows. Mirrors are where we see ourselves represented.

“Window is someone who’s not of that group, reading and learning about that group,” he said. “That’s a window into their world. So—we need both.”

Meyer said that, if we don’t have diverse writers, certain stories won’t be told or showcased. That diversity includes race, religion and physical ability. Madison Stokes echoed that statement.

“My dad…has really made an effort to put diversity in a lot of these books,” she said.

Floyd Stokes shared a story about a woman looking for a book for her daughter who had just gotten glasses. She broke into tears when she saw Stokes’ book, “My Glasses,” featuring a little girl who didn’t want to wear her new glasses.

“She started crying,” he said. “She said, ‘I’ve looked all over for a book with a little Brown or Black girl as a part of the story and couldn’t find it.’”

If you like what we do, please support our work. Become a Friend of TheBurg!

An Overground Story: Craig Family African American Cemetery brings to light an essential part of local history

January 29, 2026 | by Dan Miller

Photos courtesy of Amiya Marbles

Andrew Craig was born into slavery to a family that owned a farm modeled on a southern plantation envisioned by George Washington.

Gaining freedom by law on his 28th birthday but with no money or property, Craig continued working as a free man for the family that had enslaved him.

Through hard labor and persistence, he made a new life, marrying a free Black woman whose family had emigrated from Haiti.

They bought a house not far from the farm where Craig had been enslaved. They would have 11 children, seven of whom lived into adulthood.

Neither Craig nor his wife could read or write, but their children went to school and were educated. Craig accumulated $300 worth of real estate and $200 worth of personal property—earned through backbreaking seasonal farm labor.

Only this wasn’t the Deep South. This was Middle Paxton Township in Dauphin County, where Craig and his wife Rachel Enty Craig purchased their home not far from Fort Hunter, where Craig was enslaved by the family of Archibald McAllister from his birth in 1795 until age 28—the earliest he could be freed under the Pennsylvania Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, signed into law in 1780.

Andrew Craig died in 1863, and his wife Rachel in 1889. They are among the members of the Craig family buried in marked graves in what is known as the Craig Family African American Cemetery, which is east of Fort Hunter and south and east of the McAllister Family Cemetery.

Three other members of the Craig family—two sons and one daughter of Andrew and Rachel Craig—are also believed to be buried in the cemetery, based on obituaries and a July 1912 story in the Reading Eagle, said Dr. Steven B. Burg, a Shippensburg University history professor.

The Craig Family Cemetery is also known—erroneously—as the Fort Hunter African American Cemetery. The cemetery was originally part of the Fort Hunter estate, but, in 1933, land including the cemetery was transferred to the Country Club of Harrisburg by the will of Helen Boas Reily, who died in 1932.

Reily’s decision to transfer the land to the country club “was critical in seeing this site protected over time,” Burg said in a presentation at Fort Hunter on the Craig Family Cemetery in November.

Hike into History

Working with the country club, the task of preserving and protecting the Craig Family Cemetery—and telling and interpreting the stories of those buried there—now is being undertaken by a partnership of three organizations: Dauphin County Library System, the Popel Shaw Center for Race and Ethnicity at Dickinson College, and the International Institute for Peace through Tourism (IIPT).

This goes far beyond the history of the cemetery itself, said the late Lenwood Sloan, an African American historian who was executive director of IIPT and the Commonwealth Monument Project.

“Our story is of the above ground. Who were the people, where did they live, how did they come up out of enslavement, how did they prosper, how did they create other passageways?” said Sloan, who was interviewed shortly before he died in late December. “There’s the underground story of where they died, and then there is the overground story of (how) they lived.”

The cemetery lies in a wooded area so remote that legal access is possible only through guided tours provided by the country club. The club has suspended tours until spring, due to slippery terrain during winter on the trail leading to the cemetery.

Protecting the cemetery is also a concern. The cemetery has been vandalized. Tombstones have been damaged by people shooting bullets into them.

“It’s not an amusement park,” Sloan said. “We do not want to attract people to the site. We want to encourage them to delve into the history of the people who were placed there.”

The cemetery at one time was much more accessible, perhaps a 15-minute walk from the Fort Hunter Mansion.

That changed over time due to the intervention of man-made structures. First, the Pennsylvania Canal was built through Fort Hunter in the 1820s, dividing the property in half. The railroad, now Norfolk Southern, followed and eventually came construction of the old Route 322 highway.

Due to these obstacles, reaching the Craig cemetery now requires a rugged guided trek of at least 45 minutes’ duration—after dismounting a golf cart taking you to the edge of the country club golf course.

The journey includes a foot bridge across a creek, hiking up a mountain, crossing two plateaus, and descending a cliff at a 45-degree angle by hanging onto a rope.

A rock hung from a tree branch serves as a marker, so people don’t get lost on their way back to the country club, said the Rev. Yvette B. Davis, director of the Popel Shaw Center, who has taken the guided tour to the cemetery three times.

Shine a Light

A big part of the partnership’s mission is educating people about the Craig Cemetery without them having to hike there.

A photo exhibit about the cemetery can be found in the Harrisburg Transportation Center at 4th and Chestnut streets. Technology is enabling the partnership to bring the cemetery to the public in other ways.

WHBG-TV 20, Harrisburg’s cable TV channel, has broadcast a video about the Craig Family African American Cemetery entitled, “Under Our Radar,” featuring aerial views of the cemetery using a drone. The video can be seen on YouTube.

Destiny McFalls, a 2025 Dickinson College graduate, has designed and done research for a TikTok series on the cemetery and those buried there, said Davis.

Kelly Summerford, a former Harrisburg City Council member, spoke of using augmented reality as a tool for people to learn about the cemetery without going there. AR allows people to point a smartphone in any direction and view a digital augmentation overlay about any conceivable subject.

Summerford also plans to bring stories of those buried in the Craig Family Cemetery to life through Pennsylvania Past Players, a group of living history interpreters.

In October, the Country Club of Harrisburg started hosting Chautauqua series public lectures on the Craig Family Cemetery. The series continues Feb. 19 with a Chautauqua lecture at the Country Club on Hannah Craig, one of the 11 children of Andrew and Rachel Enty Craig and believed to be buried in the cemetery.

Dauphin County Library System plans to build a collection focused on the cemetery that will be accessible to the public through its eight branches and online resources, said DCLS Executive Director Ryan McCrory.

Much of the renewed interest in the cemetery followed its inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places in November 2024. Being placed on the register can protect a historic site from an imminent threat and qualify the site for tax credits.

But Burg said that the most important thing the National Register does is “shine a light” on places, to show their communities and the country that these are places people care about and that matter.

That has certainly been the case regarding the Craig Family Cemetery, Burg said, which provides a unique look at the legacy of slavery right in our own backyard.

“We often think about Reconstruction as something that happens after the Civil War,” he said. “But right here in Pennsylvania, in the early 19th century, we see the process of reconstruction, of society being restructured, people building new lives and transitioning from slavery to freedom.”

Visit YouTube to view the video, “Under Our Radar: The Craig Family African American Cemetery.”

If you like what we do, please support our work. Become a Friend of TheBurg!

Intellect & Independence: Celebrating the bicentennial of activist, abolitionist, educator William Howard Day

January 29, 2026 | by M. Diane McCormick

The Commonwealth Monument Project recently gifted this bust of William Howard Day for display in the PA Capitol Complex.

True learning, said William Howard Day, is not the “extent” of memorizing lines from textbooks but the “depth” of knowledge.

“And the depth will never be sounded until the mind of the student can by application weave the thought of the author into thoughts of his own period until the implanted lessons can be deduced—let out—into thoughts which are ours,” Day said at the 1893 dedication of the new Harrisburg Central High School. “That is education.”

William Howard Day channeled his talents, education and skills as teacher, administrator, politician, printer, editor, minister and orator into a life devoted to abolition of slavery, post-Reconstruction equal rights, and schools that equalized society.

Day was nationally known, a colleague of John Brown, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman whose life after the Civil War brought him to Harrisburg. Here, he continued pushing back against the erosion of civil rights while breaking boundaries as the nation’s first Black school board president.

Fighting for Freedom

William Howard Day was born on Oct. 16, 1825, in New York City. Through his activist parents, he encountered veteran abolitionists who saw the talented young Black man “as a prodigy, like he was going to be the chosen one to abolish slavery in the country,” said Todd M. Mealy, author of the Day biography, “Aliened American.”

At age 13, William’s mother sent him to Massachusetts to live with a white newspaper publisher who taught him the printing trade.

“He could be formally educated and given all the best things,” Mealy said. “The best clothing. The best education, whatever he needed, and his mom bought into it.”

He graduated from Oberlin College, taught the children of freedom seekers, conducted on the Underground Railroad, and worked as a printer. A pioneer in Black media, he published the first edition of his newspaper, the Alien American, in Cleveland in 1853.

The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act that jeopardized the freedom of all African Americans launched Day into the movement to establish sanctuary colonies in Canada. In 1859, he departed for Great Britain on a fundraising tour for the Buxton Mission in Ontario.

He stayed in Europe until 1864, “representing the cause of freedom,” in Mealy’s words.

And was he, maybe, also a fugitive from justice for his seditious secret—the act of printing abolitionist John Brown’s “Provisional Constitution?”

“John Brown’s idea was to start a slave revolution, and he asked William Howard Day to print a guideline or constitution, and William Howard Day funded that,” said Harrisburg historian Calobe Jackson, Jr. “In fact, when John Brown raided Harper’s Ferry, William Howard Day was in Europe trying to raise money. Otherwise, he would have been tried in the conspiracy. It was very dangerous. Very dangerous.”

Reconstruction and Jim Crow

William Howard Day was a big-picture man with a can-do spirit. On his 1864 return to the United States, he joined famous African American abolitionists, including Douglass, strategizing for a constitutional ban on slavery.

“The Emancipation Proclamation is not enough,” Mealy said. “If the Civil War ends without a plan, does slavery pick up again?”

During early Reconstruction, Day oversaw schools in Wilmington and Baltimore. As a Pennsylvania Republican Party organizer, he crisscrossed the state to help Black men exercise the suffrage they won in the 15th Amendment—a right still not enshrined in the Pennsylvania Constitution.

In 1873, he took a job in the Pennsylvania auditor general’s office. He bought a house in Harrisburg and made the city his home until his death on Dec. 3, 1900.

Few Americans today understand the tightening vise of Reconstruction and Jim Crow—“slavery by a different name”—that Day resisted, said historian and genealogist Sharonn Williams. Emancipation didn’t equate to freedom, even for Black Americans born in non-slave states.

“Before, they were recognized as ‘free people of color,’” Williams said. “Now, they’re just ‘people of color.’ At some point, they lost things along the way.”

Her grandfather, Williams added, “was an admirer of William Howard Day, and he instilled in me that you are not better than anybody, but you are not less than anybody. You have certain gifts, and you need to share those gifts.”

A Living Voice

In 1877, Day spoke at the dedication of Lincoln Cemetery in Harrisburg, and he would be buried there at his death.

Day’s words—“Our history is not written. It lies upon the soil watered with our blood. Who shall gather it?”—encapsulate the mission of Saving Our Ancestors’ Legacy, the project led by Rachael Williams to preserve the historic Black cemetery.

Day connected the dots needed “to create freedom and abolition, and raising the money, and connecting people, and speaking this truth and telling the history,” Williams said.

She “firmly believes” that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech echoed Day’s 1865 speeches in Washington. In one speech on the White House lawn, he said that the people emerging from bondage were following pathways forged by previous generations.

“The change, socially, may be silent, but on it moves,” he said. “It fills its years.”

Education for All

When the Harrisburg school board president died in 1891, the board turned to one of its members—William Howard Day—to fill out the term.

Day’s experience as an educator and the injustice of Pennsylvania’s legalized school segregation first inspired him to run for what would become six terms on the board.

In 1892, board members praised Day’s intellect and fairness as they reelected him as president. The rare honor emerged from “the combination of who he was and how well respected he was for the work he’d done in the city,” Mealy said.

Accepting his reelection, Day thanked board members for emphasizing that “the accidents of birth or circumstances or matters over which a man can have no control, amount to nothing in considering the interests of the thousands of children committed to your care for tuition and training in the public school—the People’s College.”

After more lofty words, Day listed the work ahead. There were schools to unify, free textbooks to supply, and music instruction to put into classrooms.

Day’s commitment to serving Harrisburg “speaks volumes” about his sacrifices while other civil rights leaders found fame from Washington and New York City, Mealy said.

“One of the things I would argue that makes Day so heroic is the fact that he localized his efforts, which goes against the grain of national popularity,” he said.

Continuing the Legacy

Day’s name lives on in Harrisburg’s W. Howard Day Homes, the William Howard Day Cemetery in Steelton, and since 2015, the Pennsylvania School Boards Association’s William Howard Day Award for outstanding contributions to public education (the indefatigable Day was a PSBA president).

But the Day Homes were founded for Black residents, said Williams. She nurtures the memory of Day’s accomplishments because the places named for him “are the things that are segregated,” she said. “Part of that offends my sensibility because he was an abolitionist.”

On Oct. 16, 2025, Downey Elementary School students sang “Happy Birthday” to celebrate Day’s bicentennial. The school was built to educate the children of Day Homes, and alumna Yvonne Echols-Hollins, a retired educator, is leading the memorialization of Day’s legacy by strengthening ties between the school and the Day Homes, with lessons on Day’s life, inviting Day Homes families to adopt classrooms, and introducing students to successful alumni and memories of the “phenomenal teachers” who encouraged them to achieve.

“A lot of good things came out of Downey School and the William Howard Day projects,” said Echols-Hollins. “We are keeping that legacy alive by doing this and letting the students know where their roots are, because if you do not know where you started, you will have no idea as to how you can get where you’re going.”

Day’s legacy lingers in “his thirst for education” and his prescient advocacy for learning steeped in independent thought, said Jackson. He revolutionized Harrisburg education by leading the construction of the unified high school that he dedicated in 1893, said Jackson.

“The idea was to end segregation,” Jackson said. “Back then, it was a big thing to build a high school. A lot of students dropped out after elementary and junior high school. The boys, especially, could go to work in the steel mills and railroads. In fact, you had to pass an exam to enter high school.”

Day himself reminded Harrisburg school board members that education invited students of all circumstances to enter “the training place for future American citizenship.”

“Climb!” he said. “Climb up the steep ladders, up the winding stairs, through the mist and dark of this hour to the sun-lit plains above you. Are circumstances against you? Cast them off. Are prejudices, grey with age, in your path? With God’s help, breathe upon them the spirit of your achievement, and they will take wings and vanish. Is Poverty walking with you arm in arm? Treat her gently and let her speak for you. But go forward.”

Historic Harrisburg Association celebrates the centennial of Black History Month with historians Calobe Jackson Jr., Barbara Barksdale, and Elizabeth Jefferies who share Harrisburg’s legacy as one of the first communities nationwide to celebrate “Negro History Week” in 1926. Fourth Monday series, 6 p.m. Feb. 23, Historic Harrisburg Resource Center, 1230 N. 3rd St., Harrisburg. Free. www.historicharrisburg.org.

If you like what we do, please support our work. Become a Friend of TheBurg!

Green Dream: Newly formed, the Harrisburg Green Alliance seeks to improve, beautify the city’s public spaces

January 29, 2026 | by Alexandra Jones

Riverfront Park

Back in 2018, National Geographic named Harrisburg one of the “top 10” greenest cities in America.

It now may get even greener.

The newly formed Harrisburg Green Alliance officially launched this month with its sights set high for improving and beautifying Harrisburg’s public spaces.

The new nonprofit is built on the idea that a city that looks clean and cared-for acts as a magnet for new residents and businesses, better retains existing ones, and attracts more tourists.

The alliance will follow the blueprint of established urban conservancies, according to board chair and interim Harrisburg University President David Schankweiler.

Conservancy groups act as private, nonprofit partners of cities—extra hands helping to manage, fund and maintain public spaces when city budgets or resources are tight.

“The outcomes we have seen have been tremendous in other cities,” Schankweiler said. “We’re not looking to reinvent how to do things. We’re taking a lot of ideas from other cities across the country and, hopefully, hoping to implement them here.”

Many cities and small towns benefit from partnering with conservancies to bolster public spaces. Take New York’s Central Park, for example.

“The land is owned and the grass is cut by the city,” Schankweiler explained. “Everything else is done by a conservancy.”

Part-time executive director of the alliance, Shana Woomer, said Greenville, S.C., is another place this model has worked.

Originally built around the textile industry, the town’s economy collapsed when the industry declined—leaving big roads and empty storefronts behind as people moved elsewhere.

“With public-private partnerships over decades, they turned things around and have a thriving downtown,” Woomer said.

One of its biggest public-private transformations was done in concert with a local conservancy, the Carolina Foothills Garden Club. The $13.5 million project, “Falls Park on the Reedy,” created a public park around an existing waterfall, previously hidden by a highway.

Afterward, the city’s reputation transformed from an abandoned textile town to a must-visit destination. Woomer said that it also spurred an additional $600 million in development in the area.

Pittsburgh is another good example of a city that has benefitted.

Since the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy’s founding 30 years ago, it’s raised $150 million and checked off 24 city park improvement projects. One of its projects, known as “Mellon Square,” helped restore a public green space atop a parking garage in the middle of downtown Pittsburgh.

According to Alana Wenk, the organization’s director of marketing and communications, the $10 million park, which reopened to the public in 2014, has since become a popular city hangout.

“A nice, central community gathering space, which, in turn, leads to a positive impact for downtown,” she said.

Wildwood Park

Welcoming, Thriving

While Harrisburg faces its own unique challenges, Woomer said that the alliance can benefit from the experiences of other revitalization efforts.

“We can learn a lot by studying how other cities and towns have risen from the ashes, what they did to revive their economies and inspire their residents,” she said.

While the alliance will undertake some visible projects within the year, other cities—like Greenville—are proof that economic improvement through beautification is a long game.

“The person that was behind that movement? He’ll tell you it was 30 years until they saw fruition,” Schankweiler said. “There are projects we’re going to do immediately, but there are other things that may take a considerably longer time.”

The Harrisburg Green Alliance plans to kick off by beautifying entrances to the city. The thought is that, when someone comes into Harrisburg, they should feel immediately welcome—whether it be a resident, a tourist or a prospective business.

“We want them to say, ‘Oh, this is the capital city. This is really nice,’” Schankweiler said.

City spokesperson Mischelle Moyer indicated the city is eager for such collaboration.

“The city, the mayor and our Parks and Recreation staff are very much so in favor of this organization and look forward to working with them in the near future,” she said.

Gathering further community support in January, the alliance held a meeting with about a dozen community groups, inviting them to the table, as the alliance launched, and encouraging an open channel for future collaborations.

The next big piece for the alliance, according to Schankweiler, is to secure financial support for projects, which will be announced as funding is secured.

“We want to make sure we’re doing projects in all parts of the city,” he added.

From any group or individual that funds a project, the alliance will also secure monies for five-year maintenance commitments, so that projects can be properly maintained after being completed.

A big focus for the group will be city parks, he said, where the city—limited by staff—often struggles to keep up with maintenance.

“They don’t have a large staff,” Schankweiler said. “They cut the grass. They do other things—but we can enhance what they do in those city parks by helping to repair equipment, replace equipment, lighting, basketball hoops—whatever it takes.”

City forester Cody Legge said that he has been brainstorming projects that match the group’s mission, which he said aligns with a future many city residents want to see.

“One where Harrisburg is greener, more welcoming and thriving,” Legge said.

From left: David Schankweiler, Shana Woomer and Kurt Knaus.

Giving Back

The idea for the Harrisburg Green Alliance came about, according to Schankweiler, through a collective brainstorm of about a dozen city residents and business owners all asking themselves one question: “How can we help the city?”

The book, “Our Towns: A 100,000 Mile Journey into the Heart of America” by James and Deborah Fallows, provided some inspiration. In it, the husband-and-wife authors document their four-year journey around the country to visit 29 small and mid-sized cities and study strategies for revitalization in the wake of economic challenges.

“Each city is an interesting story,” Woomer recounted, noting that she and many board members read the book as the board was forming. “As I read it, I couldn’t help but think, ‘Harrisburg has this’ and ‘we have that!’”

“One of the biggest takeaways from the book is that, if you invest in parks and public spaces for a more beautiful and livable city, economic development will follow,” she added.

The book also got board members thinking about Harrisburg’s assets—Woomer listed some of its most obvious: the Susquehanna riverfront, its affordability, its more-permanent (less-transient) communities.

“We also have universities, a strong arts community, medical facilities, entrepreneurs who open breweries and distilleries,” she said.

Personally, Woomer fell in love with Harrisburg when she moved to the city from Washington, D.C., 20 years ago. In the years since, she’s enjoyed connecting with her community through a plethora of “entrepreneurial” pursuits, including owning a restaurant, working in public relations and events and selling real estate as a licensed agent.

“It’s small enough I feel like you can really make a difference,” Woomer said.

According to Schankweiler, every member of the alliance’s 18-person board shares a similar love for living in the area.

“You couldn’t get any bigger cheerleaders,” he said.

Schankweiler, a city resident, grew up in Harrisburg and moved back after college. He later founded and ran the Central Penn Business Journal for more than three decades, always proud to show off Pennsylvania’s capital to visiting colleagues.

Chair of the board’s communications committee, Kurt Knaus sees his work with the alliance as a chance to give back to the city he loves. A 30-year resident, Knaus, senior vice president of Ceisler Media, lives by the Broad Street Market and works downtown.

He walks to work, he said, which gives him a chance to see both the best and worst of the city. For him, the alliance is a chance to enhance the city’s best parts.

“What I see is its underlying greatness,” Knaus said of Harrisburg.

He added that, while the alliance has been laying its foundation, it’s been incredible to see the eagerness with which so many people want to help the city.

“There is a reserved energy in the city where people really want to roll up their sleeves and do something,” he said.

Schankweiler looks forward to harnessing such energy and using it to bolster not just Harrisburg—but the surrounding area.

“We are the hub for this region,” he said, “and our success will be the success of the region.”

For more information on the Harrisburg Green Alliance, visit www.hbggreen.com.

Stories in TheBurg on environmental topics are proudly sponsored by LCSWMA.

If you like what we do, please support our work. Become a Friend of TheBurg!

He Lifted Us: Lenwood Sloan was an artist, activist, visionary, friend

January 29, 2026 | by M. Diane McCormick

Photo by John Bivins

Visionaries always have their doubters. When Lenwood Sloan was collecting support for “A Gathering at the Crossroads” sculpture, naysayers sidled in to discourage potential donors.

But guess what stands today in the Pennsylvania Capitol Complex? “A Gathering at the Crossroads Commonwealth Monument,” commemorating the civil rights victories of residents and visitors to the vanished Old Eighth Ward of 19th-century Harrisburg.

“He always kept his eyes on the vision, which meant that no matter what anyone was saying, no matter who was opposing him, he always rose above it, and he stayed focused on the goal,” said Yvette Davis, director of the Popel Shaw Center for Race & Ethnicity at Dickinson College in Carlisle. “No matter what point of the process we were in, he could describe that monument with such meticulous detail, you would think it had already been constructed.”

Sloan was a “catalytic agent.” He convened people and turned dreams into reality through his talents as public historian, reenactor, actor, dancer and leader in the National Endowment for the Arts and government arts and heritage offices in Pennsylvania, California and New Orleans.

Sloan died suddenly on Dec. 26 at age 77. He left behind countless grieving but grateful friends, family members and colleagues. Anyone ever on Sloan’s famous non-bcc emails had insight into the hundreds of people he could sweep into his orbit, one change initiative at a time.

Living His Purpose

This story is about what family and friends learned from Sloan. There isn’t enough room for all of his accomplishments. In addition to “A Gathering at the Crossroads,” now a Harrisburg landmark anchoring T. Morris Chester Way (yes, another Sloan ideation), here are a few:

The Grand Review of the United States Colored Troops, a 2010 reenactment of Harrisburg’s 1865 Grand Review for Black troops shut out from the Union Army’s victory parade in Washington
The Pennsylvania Past Players, skilled reenactors animating the lives of central Pennsylvania’s abolitionists, Underground Railroad conductors and early civil rights activists
The International Institute for Peace through Tourism Peace Promenade in Harrisburg’s Riverfront Park
Pennsylvania artisan and heritage trails

“He had an incredible eye to help people realize what they might have in their backyard and to frame what I would call the embarrassment of riches in Pennsylvania to residents and visitors alike,” said Michael Chapaloney, a former colleague in the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development’s tourism office.

Raised in Pittsburgh, Sloan trained and danced with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Joffrey Ballet. He staged his own theatrical works—his “Vo-Du Macbeth” reimagining of Orson Welles’ “Voodoo Macbeth” must have been something to see—and recreated historical dances, leading to film and television consulting that included movement specialist for “12 Years a Slave.”

To Heather Williams of College Park, Md., her Uncle Leni always had a project underway.

“He was this big, huge presence as a vessel and a visionary, and yet, there was also this part of him which I call his humble heart,” said Williams, the daughter of one of Sloan’s sisters.

Part of her mother’s massive Black art collection is in Lancaster Art Vault’s February African American art exhibit, complete with descriptions that Sloan assigned family members to write, because he walked into the gallery, struck up a conversation, “and before she knew it, they were booking a date.”

“His purpose was to be a catalyst for change, and God gifted him with talents and with an interest in developing those talents to be able to live his purpose,” Williams said.

After Sloan learned that erecting “A Gathering at the Crossroads” in Riverfront Park, as originally intended, required buying insurance to cover maintenance, he pivoted by working to gift it to the state, “and the state would keep it up,” said Harrisburg historian Calobe Jackson Jr.

“He can finalize anything,” Jackson said. “Some can theorize, but he’s able to take a theory and put it together and get a final product. That’s what I like about Lenwood.”

Moving Forward

As a public historian, Sloan encouraged people to find the family stories and mementos hidden in attics and stashed under beds. When historian and genealogist Sharonn Williams learned that she is a great-niece of Jacob Compton, the Harrisburg coachman famous for spiriting Abraham Lincoln away from would-be assassins, Sloan told her, “Your work is not done.”

Today’s policies requiring immigrants to carry papers and deporting them to unfamiliar countries echo manumission and colonialism, when slaveowners shipped enslaved people to distant states, and the children of Native Americans were forcibly assimilated, said Williams.

“There are people around us who say, ‘That’s new. That’s different,’” Sharonn Williams said. “No, it’s not. It’s not new.”

In the wake of Sloan’s death, she added, “we need to keep moving forward, make sure that we are doing things for and in the public that will keep telling these stories.”

Davis, a Pennsylvania Past Players member and the Dauphin County Library System board president, was in awe of Sloan, “so touched and humbled and intimidated that he would take me under his wing as he would for so many other people.”

At one Pennsylvania Past Players event, Davis’ heart dropped when Sloan asked her, without warning, to explain Pennsylvania’s coverture laws that erased a married woman’s legal identity—a topic Davis hadn’t reviewed in months.

“Lenwood knew that I knew the answer to that question,” Davis said. “I didn’t know that I knew the answer. But in that moment, by God’s grace, it all came back, and Lenwood had such a smile on his face.”

Sloan met his husband, poet Byron Clement, through a mutual friend in New Orleans. Together for 22 years and married since 2017, they relocated to Harrisburg just before Hurricane Katrina.

“He was pretty self-propelled,” Clement said. “He had great talent for bringing people together. He had immense energy. It took a lot of pushing to get these things through, and he’d hang in there and fight for them.”

New Vision

Inspired by his parents’ activism and nurtured by his family, Sloan used and preserved history to generate change, even while he was the uncle who never missed a dance recital, said Heather Williams.

“Very few people know how to love and give equally,” she said.

Sloan was “always interested in what you were doing,” echoed Tom Weaver, former associate artistic director of Gamut Theatre Group.

Gamut was rehearsing its 2014 Free Shakespeare in the Park production of “Antony and Cleopatra” when Sloan made the steep trek to Reservoir Park—the non-driver walked everywhere—to address the cast.

Smartly dressed, as always, Sloan shared his support for the players offering a free event to the community.

“He was so inspiring and encouraging,” Weaver said. “I don’t think anyone in that cast knew him at the time. I remember seeing their faces just light up as he was talking to them, and it injected some inspiration and some strength into that rehearsal.”

Family and friends are discussing how to memorialize Sloan, but all agree that his greatest monument will be continuing his work.

Sloan was “adamant” that the Pennsylvania Past Players capture the spirit and humanity that drove oppressed people—of all races, ethnicities and colors—to overcome, said Davis.

“That increases the collective self, the collective esteem of basically any community, even if you were not among the oppressed,” she said. “There is a new vision to how you can partner with the oppressed to bring justice, which also increases that group’s self-esteem with a lens toward justice, power, strength, wisdom and persistence.”

Sloan, she added, was “the poster child for persistence.”

“It’s going to take hundreds and hundreds of feet to fill Lenwood’s shoes, and there will still be room in them. He left so many legacies. He lifted us in so many, many, many ways,” Davis said.

If you like what we do, please support our work. Become a Friend of TheBurg!

Veto to Toe: Relations between Harrisburg’s mayor and City Council have soured to the point of litigation. How did we reach this place?

January 29, 2026 | by Maddie Gittens

Illustration by Rich Hauck

During her final meeting as City Council president in 2021, Wanda Williams cut herself off, mid-goodbye speech, to keep her tears at bay.

She had been elected Harrisburg mayor the prior November and was about to bang her council gavel for the final time, but first she had some words to share.

“I love each and every one of you,” Williams said to her colleagues. “You are experienced, you’re leaders, you’re workers, you’re compassionate about what you do, and I’m so, so proud of each and every one of you. This is the best council that I think that we’ve ever had in the last 16 years.”

A smiling Danielle Hill, who served alongside Williams, presented her with a gift and plaque on behalf of council.

Four years later and Hill, now council president, said that she has virtually zero communication with Williams, who was recently sworn in for a second term as mayor. She doesn’t even attempt to call or text her anymore because her calls go to voicemail and texts go undelivered, she said. She believes that Williams has blocked her, which the mayor denies.

“I think she mentioned that we should text or email her,” Hill said. “When she served as the council president, I know she didn’t check her email so I’m not really sure how I’m supposed to communicate.”

Williams said she hasn’t blocked Hill and that, in city hall, council members have passed her without saying a word.

A Cycle Repeats

Back in 2021, after a rocky end to the relationship between former Mayor Eric Papenfuse and council, the stage was set for a smoother one under the new Williams administration. After all, Williams had spent years on council, and now her former council colleagues would serve as governing partners.

Despite a decent start—Hill said that she met with Williams weekly at first, though Williams disputes that—the relationship quickly backslid.

According to city Solicitor Neil Grover, history has repeated itself.

“I tell this story again and again. In 1860, we became a city and, in 1861, the very first mayor sued the very first council for who had power to do what,” Grover said. “That has repeated itself 20 and 30 and 40 years apart several times.”

Tensions between the two bodies reached that same point during this year’s budget cycle. Williams has now sued council, after a back-and-forth of budget vetoes and overrides, as council eliminated salaries for several top city officials.

Council defunded the business administrator role, one of the city’s highest posts, saying that the interim director had remained in the position without council’s approval, past the allowed time for a temporary employee. They reduced the salary for the interim director of building and housing development for the same reason.

They also zeroed out the salary for the project director for business administration/LERTA, expressing dissatisfaction with the director’s work, and for the police bureau’s director of community engagement and relations, saying they felt the position was not needed.

For the roles that are unfunded, directors were terminated, and no one can be hired because there’s no money to pay them.

The lawsuit hinges on a disagreement over where the line is drawn between the two bodies’ powers. The mayor said that council crossed into “territory that does not belong to them,” by trying to assume an executive function such as personnel management. Williams called it an “overreach.” However, Hill maintained that council was within its rights by removing funds and didn’t fire anyone. “That is not under our purview,” she said.

“It’s fundamental questions of government,” Grover said. “What is the legislative authority? Where’s the line? What is executive authority? Where’s the line?”

But what is really behind the issue? Why can’t council and the mayor work it out, outside of court?

“Is that what you’d boil the issue down to—the lack of communication?” TheBurg asked Hill.

“I think so, I guess,” she said. “It just saddens me because, when does the cycle end?”

Dependent on Each Other

Going back to the basics, Harrisburg is a third-class city with a mayor-council form of government. Unlike other municipalities that may have a city manager or commissioners, Harrisburg’s mayor is given significant power. Harrisburg has a strong-mayor form of government, as opposed to the weak-mayor model, where the mayor is ceremonial.

Harrisburg first adopted the strong-mayor setup in 1970. Democrat Harold Swenson became the first strong mayor, after the question of changing the governmental structure appeared on the 1969 ballot and was approved by voters, according to newspaper clippings from the time.

While the mayor handles daily operations—hiring, firing, spending, etc.—council is supposed to serve as the fiscal watchdog and legislative body. For example, council approves an annual budget with spending allocations, but the mayor and her staff prepare that budget, spend that money and execute projects. Both the mayor and council can introduce legislation.

Harrisburg may have a system in which the mayor has broad executive authority, but without council on board, her power can face barriers.

According to Grover, the mayor-council system relies on the two branches working together.

“The government cannot run if the branches of government don’t work together. You see that here, you see that everywhere,” Grover said. “That’s how it’s designed. It makes them each dependent on each other.”

Ultimately, the cost of bad blood between council and the mayor lands on the taxpayer’s bill. The two bodies can keep score of wrongdoings, argue over who is at fault or cling to grudges, but in the tug of war, residents are the ones who suffer.

Whether that plays out in stalled city services, costly legal fees or lack of progress, something gets caught in the middle.

“I always tell both branches of government, you need to guard your powers jealously,” Grover said. “People gave them to you. You’ve got to guard them, but then you also have to figure out where the line is.”

The issue now is that both the council president and the mayor blame the other for the problem, and each seems to be waiting for the other to budge.

“It’s not productive, and the people who lose out in this are the residents,” Hill said. “It’s a little time intensive going back and forth, and it doesn’t have to be. If communication improves, perhaps that’s one avenue. But I would like to reiterate that I don’t have a communication issue.”

On the opposite side, Williams said that it’s council that has the issue.

“It’s unfortunate that we cannot collaborate more together. My doors are open […] knock on my door,” Williams told reporters in January.

With the tense council-mayor dynamic recurring through the years, is there another option for Harrisburg?

Outside of officials joining hands, the city could re-evaluate its structure by enacting a “home rule charter,” a complex process that would examine various governmental structures and possibly recommend a new one for residents. It’s something that Grover said has been brought up over the years but hasn’t made it to a vote.

In Harrisburg’s current governmental structure, officials are hopeful that relationship repairs can be made. Both Williams and Hill said as much.

How that will happen, especially with the feud landing in court, and most elected officials at the start or middle of their terms, remains to be seen.

“I’m actually a believer in institutions,” Grover said. “I believe there will be a point where they come together—it’s just how do you do it? I completely believe that will happen. I believe when you force the question, solutions arise.”

If you like what we do, please support our work. Become a Friend of TheBurg!

Loss Leaders: A brief history of bad decision-making in Harrisburg

January 29, 2026 | by Lawrance Binda

Illustration by Rich Hauck

“What brought you to this lowly state?”

Over the recent holiday season, I watched “A Christmas Story” for the umpteenth time as, maybe, you did too. If so, you may recognize that quote, muttered by the “old man” during the scene in which Ralphie imagines himself poisoned and blinded by Lifebuoy soap.

Hearing that quote, I thought of—wait for it—Harrisburg. Ridiculous, right?

Except that Harrisburg does find itself in a lowly state, and, from online comments, it seems that lots of folks, maybe newer to the city, don’t understand how we got here. How has downtown, specifically, become riddled with closed businesses and empty storefronts? I thought a quick review was in order.

Gather ‘round, boys and girls, and let me tell you about the 1990s.

Britney Spears was cranking out pop hits, “Y2K” was about to destroy the planet, and, in Harrisburg, “mayor for life” Steve Reed was spending money (as my mother would say) like a drunken sailor.

Reed was ambitious, wanting things for Harrisburg found in many other cities: a university, an arts center, museums, a sports hall of fame, a baseball stadium. And he wasn’t about to let the annoying fact that Harrisburg couldn’t afford any of these things get in his way.

At around the same time, the city’s cursed incinerator kept polluting and failing—and polluting and failing. Something needed to be done about that.

So, Reed and his yes-men stumbled upon an “ingenious” solution they thought could kill two birds with one stone. They heard about an experimental technology that, they hoped, would burn trash cleanly, expand capacity and generate electricity. If it worked, the city would dispose of its garbage, get the EPA off its back, and, to boot, pocket some cash, a constant Reed obsession as he pursued his many grandiose, incredibly expensive schemes.

Only it didn’t work—and bad money followed more bad money trying to bang the darn contraption into shape. In a few years, Harrisburg found itself nearly half-a-billion dollars in debt and on the brink of bankruptcy.

In fact, in late 2011, City Council tried to declare municipal bankruptcy but was blocked from doing so by the state legislature, which mandated a receiver instead. A couple years later, the receiver drafted a financial recovery plan that sold off the incinerator and leased the city’s most valuable asset—its parking system—back to the commonwealth for 40 years to pay off Harrisburg’s massive debt.

And that’s how the city lost control of its parking.

So, if you have complaints about the insane rate of street parking, or the insane rate of garage parking, or the insane rate of parking tickets, don’t bother trekking to city hall. They can’t help you. Stroll over to 3rd and State streets, ascend the grand stone staircase and rap on the Capitol’s front door. Those are the guys who control the city’s downtown parking.

Now, to summarize: What brought Harrisburg to this lowly state?

At its core—bad leadership, at the both the state and local levels.

For years, Reed ran amok with the city’s finances and the state, which is supposed to supervise municipal spending, looked the other way. Then, once it all hit the fan, the state prevented the city from declaring bankruptcy and forced it into receivership.

As part of the financial workout, the state took over the city’s parking system, issuing bonds to pay off the city’s creditors. It then hired a parking manager, whose wacko response to weak demand was to keep jacking up rates. Downtown Harrisburg now is one of the most expensive places on earth to park a car, and people have responded by not visiting and not using the system.

But the parking nightmare didn’t end there either.

After the pandemic, the state allowed most of its workforce, most of the time, to work remotely. State employees usually didn’t need to pay for parking, but others did: lobbyists, lawyers, contractors, consultants, caterers, constituents, businesspeople, visitors—each day, tons of people met with and supported the 25,000 or so folks who worked at the Capitol complex. So, in that way, the state sabotaged its own parking regime.

These visitors also supported downtown businesses. They robustly patronized cafés, lunch spots, hotels and restaurants, often not shy about flexing their expense accounts. For Harrisburg’s small downtown, these customers made a huge difference—today, they’re mostly gone.

Meanwhile, back at city hall, leadership is also wanting. We have virtual gridlock because City Council and the mayor are locked in a bizarre, deeply personal cold war. Instead of joining forces and marshalling resources to help solve the city’s problems and revitalize downtown, they’ve essentially stopped communicating, aside from the occasional dig or media taunt.

At long last, the people of Harrisburg need—and deserve—quality leadership from all its elected officials. In recent Harrisburg history, this leadership has been, at turns, irresponsible, negligent, arrogant and profligate, and it’s a major reason why the city, today, finds itself in “this lowly state.”

Lawrance Binda is publisher and editor of TheBurg.

If you like what we do, please support our work. Become a Friend of TheBurg!

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like

You May Also Like