Eleventh Bench by the Road to be Placed at Eden Cemetery
Eden Cemetery, located in Collingdale, Pennsylvania, will be the next recipient to receive a Bench by the Road on April 24th, 2014. This memorial event will celebrate the lives of the many national and internationally renowned African-Americans interred within Eden’s hallowed grounds, including the following people: the renowned opera singer Marian Anderson; poet, author, educator, women’s rights activist and abolitionist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper; Underground Railroad conductor and author William Still; architect and lead designer of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Duke University Chapel Julian Frances Abele; the first African-American Olympic Gold Medalist John Baxter Taylor; editor, poet, novelist and essayist Jesse Redmon Fauset; the influential minister, gospel composer and writer of hymnals and songs including “We Shall Overcome,” the Rev. Dr. Charles Albert Tindley; and Civil Rights leader, journalist, editor, publisher and longtime advisor to Booker T. Washington, Timothy Thomas Fortune. The day and evening will be full of events, beginning with a ceremony to be held at the burial ground in which the bench will be unveiled, and ending with an evening reception and gala to be held at the African-American Museum of Philadelphia.