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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2013 - 2014
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | August 29, 2014 10:43 AM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Vanessa Lowery Brown |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Co-sponsorship of Resolution - Honoring Herman Wrice - Community Activist |
| In the near future, I am planning to introduce a resolution honoring the life of Herman Wrice, acclaimed activist and community organizer in the City of Philadelphia, who lived from 1939 to 2000. Herman Wrice grew up in the crime and drug-infested streets of Mantua, a neighborhood in West Philadelphia. Later in life, he tried to clean up the streets and help wayward youth get “on the right track.” Wrice initially formed the Young Great Society, a group through which he and his friends created various types of constructive activities for youth that helped to move them in positive directions. However, given the continuing conditions of crime and drug-dealing in the neighborhood, Wrice later formed Mantua Against Drugs (MAD), which was a group designed to organize his neighbors to take a direct-intervention approach toward fighting such conditions. Wrice organized marches through the streets of Mantua and other parts of the city, and he created what became known as the “Wrice Process.” This was a unique method of confronting street-level drug dealers, such as hanging “wanted” posters of drug dealers in the neighborhood, and blasting open the doors of crack houses with a sledgehammer. Wrice’s bold approach to confronting drug dealers and other lawbreakers in the neighborhoods of Philadelphia brought him nationwide recognition and acclaim. He travelled around the country speaking about his effective methods of confronting crime and participated in marches through neighborhoods in other states helping others take back their streets. Upon his death in 2000, a mural was painted of Wrice in his West Philadelphia neighborhood. With the mural later obstructed by new building construction, the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program organized community members to repaint its likeness a short distance away. This new mural painting was recently formally dedicated in Mr. Wrice’s honor. Please join me in honoring the life of Herman Wrice, who became a local and national role model for social justice. |
Introduced as HR1005