By Steve Rhodes
“Wendell Phillips Academy, the landmark Bronzeville high school that boasts Nat King Cole and Sam Cooke as alumni, can now claim the first state title by a public league football team,” WLS-TV (and others) reports. “Phillips won the historic championship by beating over Althoff Catholic from Belleville, 51-7.”
Let’s learn a little bit more about the school, the football team, and the man the school is named after.
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Even before winning the championship, Wendell Phillips Academy had been featured twice on Sports Illustrated’s “Underdogs” series.
1. Underdogs: Wendell Phillips Academy (2013).
“Three years after embarking on a school-wide turnaround, Phillips now boasts one of Chicago Public Schools’ best football teams. The formerly failing school, located in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the South Side, prepared to face Evergreen Park.”
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2. Underdogs: Wendell Phillips Academy (2015).
“SI returns to Chicago as Wendell Phillips inches closer than ever to its goal of becoming the first Chicago Public School to win a state championship.”
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The school . . .
1. A Look Back.
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2. The 2014 Alumni Sock Hop.
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3. The Wendell Phillips YouTube channel.
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The person . . .
“Wendell Phillips (November 29, 1811-February 2, 1884) was an American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator and lawyer.”
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“After opening a law office in Boston, Phillips, a wealthy Harvard Law School graduate, sacrificed social status and a prospective political career in order to join the antislavery movement.”
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“In 1835, from his office window, he saw William Lloyd Garrison being dragged through the street by a mob, an event that changed his attitude toward slavery. Phillips’s meeting with Ann Terry Greene, an active worker in the Boston Female Antislavery Society, increased his interest in the abolition movement. They were married on Oct. 12, 1837. He wrote later that ‘my wife made an out-and-out abolitionist of me, and always preceded me in the adoption of various causes I have advocated.'”
Cool dude. And check out his sideburns.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on December 2, 2015