Frances E. W. Harper: We Are All Bound Up Together
Mural Arts and PSU’s Center for Black Digital Research/#DigBlk will dedicate a powerful and inspiring mural, Frances E. W. Harper: We Are All Bound Up Together,  honoring the life and legacy of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825–1911), poet, orator, abolitionist, suffragist, and one of the most influential Black women of the 19th century.
As part of PSU’s #Harper200, a year-long bicentennial celebration marking 200 years since Harper’s birth, this special event will unveil a new public mural by Philadelphia-based artist Athena Scott, located on the exterior wall of Greene Street Friends School. This vibrant artwork pays tribute to Harper’s lifelong fight for freedom, education, and justice, and reflects the spirit of community that continues to animate her legacy.
As part of the project, Poet Ursula Rucker led three workshops with seventh-grade students from Greene Street Friends around Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s work. Scott and the artistic team led a paint day for Greene Street eighth-grade students as well as a community paint day for Germantown residents earlier in the month. Additionally, #DigBlk worked with a cohort of teachers from Greene Street Friends to develop a shared curriculum around Harper.
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825–1911) was an author and activist whose groundbreaking legacy has been foundational for Black women writers and organizers alike. Born free in Baltimore, orphaned at an early age, and adopted into her activist uncle’s household, she grew up to become the most popular Black poet and prolific Black novelist of the nineteenth century. As a young woman and as a seasoned activist, Harper broke through barriers in too many arenas to count: as a woman anti-slavery speaker, as a Black woman in higher education, as a writer, as a co-founder of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), and as an organizational leader in the movements for Black and women’s political rights and dignity.
Born in Baltimore, Harper moved to Philadelphia, where she lived for more than fifty years. Her home at 1006 Bainbridge Street was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976. The mural also includes other notable 19th-century abolitionists with Philadelphia roots: Harriet Forten Purvis, Nannie Helen Burroughs, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, and Charlotte Forten Grimke.
The Armat street side of the mural features Germantown native and Greene Street Friends School alumnae, Rise Wilson. Wilson is the great-granddaughter of Adelaide, Vera, and Paula. She is also an artist, herbalist, and serial entrepreneur. In 1 999 she founded The Laundromat Project and has since held leadership roles at the intersection of art and justice. Her work in all its forms is preoccupied with dislodging herself from the bear-traps of oppression to help her kinfolk do the same.
Learn more about Frances E. W. Harper at 200: https://coloredconventions.org/harper/
Check out this Zine honoring Harper and her work.
