The Pyramid Club
Philadelphia, PA.
"The Founders of the Pyramid Club were men of vision. They sensed the temper of the times and keenly felt the need of their people. They appreciated the great aching void in the lives of so many which required an organization of a specific and peculiar kind. An organization which, through fellowship, cooperative planning and group discipline, could aspire toward becoming a social and cultural focus and register of Negro life and endeavor in our city, our state, our nation. And, while very many persons suffered this need, it remained for a dynamic few individuals to come to grips with the situation so that organization could be effected.
Men of the caliber of Woodley Wells, Alton C. Berry, George Drummond, Wilbur Strickland.....these are the men whose advanced thinking and breadth of vision inspired them while at Alton Berry's home to express the need and mull over techniques and procedures for handling this organizational problem.
Later, meeting in the basement of the Y.M.C.A. on Christian Street for days and weeks on end they furthered their thinking and their planning. The number grew as others of like mind and spirit enlisted in the consensus and they shifted the arena of their considerations to the offices of Lewis Tanner Moore. Here many additional hours of serious expression and refinement of plans were spent. This ran through the year nineteen hundred and thirty-seven. In the following year organization crystallized and John Francis Williams provided the name: The Pyramid Club.
A clubhouse was purchased on Christian Street but not a single meeting was held there, for, so fast and surely was the idea growing that by the time the house had been acquired it was outgrown and a new and much larger edifice was seen to be imperative.
Fortune smiled it's beneficent best as Scholley Pace Alexander sought and came upon the building which has become our present home. In a little more than a year giant strides have been made from that naked building, the keys of which were turned over by Theodore O. Spaulding to Thomas Powell. Now the club has been pointed and furbished in grand style consistent with the needs and purposes and dignity of the organization. The Clubhouse now stands, a magnificent tribute to the founders, the members and the public that wishes it well.
But, organization is a structural thing, a mere plan, a form, and remains so until the breath of life and the glow of personality enter therein and makes it significant. It remained for the magnificent leadership of Walter F. Jerrick to accomplish this stroke of genius. Here is the man who excited the membership to enthusiasm, who brought into sharp relief the aims and possibilities of the organization, so that it feels itself impelled to move toward a grand and glorious destiny.
It was Walter F. Jerrick who set the Pyramid Club upon a tradition of confidence and cooperative enterprise such as we scarcely seen before. And, as a result of the leadership of this incomparable personage, the Pyramid Club becomes no little island of selfishness in the midst of a sea of humanity but rather a movement representing the persistence of idealism in a materialistic world; it is no attempt of a few to withdraw from the many, but the drawing together of many into firm fellowship to the end that all will profit thereby; it is no denial of reality in favor of the fancied, but instead the application of implemented vision to the possibilities inherent in realities.
And, just as the vision of the founders and the leadership of our beloved president moves us increasingly toward real objectives, and just as the club draws continually unto it new men, inspired imagination and fresh vigor out of the spirit wells of our race, the club and what it stands for will thrive and flourish. The target our ambitions, the tactical finesse of our development will ever by fellowship, cultural excellence, pride of race, spiritual rectitude and service to our fellow man.
The success of the Pyramid Club will be neither more nor less than the strength of the men and the traditions which built it.
These being strong, the future is assured.".........................................(Excerpt from "Pictorial Album of The Pyramid Club, First Anniversary, October, 1941, Philadelphia, PA")
Humbert Howard was the Art Director and Curator of the Pyramid Club Art Exhibitions and Galleries throughout the duration of it's existence. He was also responsible for integrating the Pyramid Club through Art bringing all the Great American artists together to celebrate the African American Culture and History.
Men of the caliber of Woodley Wells, Alton C. Berry, George Drummond, Wilbur Strickland.....these are the men whose advanced thinking and breadth of vision inspired them while at Alton Berry's home to express the need and mull over techniques and procedures for handling this organizational problem.
Later, meeting in the basement of the Y.M.C.A. on Christian Street for days and weeks on end they furthered their thinking and their planning. The number grew as others of like mind and spirit enlisted in the consensus and they shifted the arena of their considerations to the offices of Lewis Tanner Moore. Here many additional hours of serious expression and refinement of plans were spent. This ran through the year nineteen hundred and thirty-seven. In the following year organization crystallized and John Francis Williams provided the name: The Pyramid Club.
A clubhouse was purchased on Christian Street but not a single meeting was held there, for, so fast and surely was the idea growing that by the time the house had been acquired it was outgrown and a new and much larger edifice was seen to be imperative.
Fortune smiled it's beneficent best as Scholley Pace Alexander sought and came upon the building which has become our present home. In a little more than a year giant strides have been made from that naked building, the keys of which were turned over by Theodore O. Spaulding to Thomas Powell. Now the club has been pointed and furbished in grand style consistent with the needs and purposes and dignity of the organization. The Clubhouse now stands, a magnificent tribute to the founders, the members and the public that wishes it well.
But, organization is a structural thing, a mere plan, a form, and remains so until the breath of life and the glow of personality enter therein and makes it significant. It remained for the magnificent leadership of Walter F. Jerrick to accomplish this stroke of genius. Here is the man who excited the membership to enthusiasm, who brought into sharp relief the aims and possibilities of the organization, so that it feels itself impelled to move toward a grand and glorious destiny.
It was Walter F. Jerrick who set the Pyramid Club upon a tradition of confidence and cooperative enterprise such as we scarcely seen before. And, as a result of the leadership of this incomparable personage, the Pyramid Club becomes no little island of selfishness in the midst of a sea of humanity but rather a movement representing the persistence of idealism in a materialistic world; it is no attempt of a few to withdraw from the many, but the drawing together of many into firm fellowship to the end that all will profit thereby; it is no denial of reality in favor of the fancied, but instead the application of implemented vision to the possibilities inherent in realities.
And, just as the vision of the founders and the leadership of our beloved president moves us increasingly toward real objectives, and just as the club draws continually unto it new men, inspired imagination and fresh vigor out of the spirit wells of our race, the club and what it stands for will thrive and flourish. The target our ambitions, the tactical finesse of our development will ever by fellowship, cultural excellence, pride of race, spiritual rectitude and service to our fellow man.
The success of the Pyramid Club will be neither more nor less than the strength of the men and the traditions which built it.
These being strong, the future is assured.".........................................(Excerpt from "Pictorial Album of The Pyramid Club, First Anniversary, October, 1941, Philadelphia, PA")
Humbert Howard was the Art Director and Curator of the Pyramid Club Art Exhibitions and Galleries throughout the duration of it's existence. He was also responsible for integrating the Pyramid Club through Art bringing all the Great American artists together to celebrate the African American Culture and History.