History of Seger Park

What’s in a Name? The Charles T. Mitchell, Jr. Playground

Story by Alina Josan, Archivist, Fairmount Park Historic Resource Archives

Many Philadelphia Parks & Recreation sites have gone through designation changes over the years, but the story of the names associated with the park that stretches between 10th and 11th, along Lombard Street, is particularly compelling. In 1916, the portion of land bounded by 10th, Rodman, 11th and Lombard streets was condemned for park and playground purposes and placed under the city’s recently formed Board of Recreation. This new park sat in the center of Philadelphia’s Seventh Ward, the city’s historic AfricanAmerican neighborhood, famously described by W. E. B. Du Bois in his landmark 1899 study.

By 1921 a recreation building was planned at that site with a name intended to serve as acknowledgement of the neighborhood’s strong black community: the Phillis Wheatley Community Centre. Despite this plan, the park as a whole was named after Charles Seger, an active and influential long-time Philadelphia City Council member at the turn of the 20th century. Seger, recently deceased, had actually owned properties that were later condemned for the creation of the park. Philadelphia mayor J. Hampton Moore approved a new proposal to name the park after Seger instead of Wheatley at the last minute. The community agreed with this change due to the intervention of local African-American political and community leaders like Edward J. Henry, president of the Citizens Republican Club (CRC). Henry and his supporters made use of such calculated moves in order to secure political support for black Republican leaders that included Amos Scott, the first African-American magistrate in Philadelphia.

This significant episode was recorded in several articles published in 1921 by the Philadelphia Tribune and recounted in great detail by Marcus Anthony Hunter in his 2013 book, Black Citymakers. Although the park as a whole was not named after a prominent AfricanAmerican, the building that was constructed within it just a year later did receive this distinction. The Fannie M. Jackson Coppin Recreation Center was built and named by City ordinance of February 9, 1922. Coppin taught at Philadelphia’s pioneering Institute for Colored Youth, at the time located at 915 Bainbridge street, just blocks away from the building that was to take her name. In 1896 she became the Institute’s principal, making her the first African-American woman to hold that title in a school of higher education. The name bestowed on the Seventh Ward’s new recreation building was a fitting tribute to this influential educator who had died in 1913.

The two-story Fannie M. Jackson Coppin Recreation Center was located within the Charles Seger Playground, with a main entrance facing Rodman street. High maintenance costs and disrepair led to its demolition in the early 1970s and a new, significantly smaller building was erected in its place. Although operational by 1974, this new building was not initially given an official name. The park as a whole was renamed by City ordinance of July 26, 1976 and this time it finally bore the name of a prominent African-American. What’s more, the newly renamed Charles T. Mitchell, Jr. Playground is now named after an important figure in the history of Philadelphia recreation. Mitchell had worked at that actual site: he was the head of staff at Charles Seger Playground since the 1930s and later served as a recreation district supervisor. His major lifetime work concerned the development of recreational programs for children with intellectual disabilities. Mitchell served as president of the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children (PARC) in the 1950s and continued to be an active chairman into the 1970s when that organization won a seminal lawsuit that brought disabled children the right to education. He was responsible for the development of many recreational programs provided for individuals with disabilities in Philadelphia, like the Kenniston day camp held at Ormiston Mansion.

By 1976 however, the neighboring community had gotten so used to calling the playground Seger Park that it was difficult to enforce the new name. A compromise was reached with the ordinance of April 18, 1977 that designated the newer, one-story building within Charles T. Mitchell, Jr. Playground, the Charles M. Seger Recreation Building. And that’s how things remain today. The Fannie M. Jackson Coppin Recreation Center is now gone but we can still tell its story and that of the historic Seventh Ward, while honoring Charles T. Mitchell, Jr.