Working Toward a Working-Class College: The Long Campaign to Build a Community College in Philadelphia

In the Fall of 1962, high school seniors Leon Zachery and Deitra Caul submitted applications for the Philadelphia City Scholarship competition. Both students excelled in high school, but both Zachery, whose mother worked in childcare, and Caul, whose mother did clerical work for the Presbyterian Life Magazine, feared that without outside assistance they would not be able to afford college tuition. In the letter supporting his application, Zachery's biology teacher at West Philadelphia high school described him as a “serious young man” who “knows a great deal about various subjects that is not required study… [and] seems to have become well-read from his intensive study.” “He is an exceptional boy [who] I feel should go to college or it would be a dreadful waste,” the teacher concluded. Caul's guidance counselor, William Cannady, offered a similar appraisal. Cannady, one of the first black high school teachers in Philadelphia, noted that Deitra Caul graduated first in her class at Gratz high school and “participated extensively in extra-curricular activities without any loss in academic status.” “It would be tragic,” Cannady wrote, “if Miss Caul had to forgo college because of a lack of finances.” With stellar academic records and demonstrated financial need, Zachery and Caul were among the forty-nine City Scholarship winners in 1962–1963, and the only two African-American students so selected.