Celebrating Black History: The Start of Media’s Afro-American Community

Media, the county seat, has had a thriving Black community since before it was founded in 1850. Dr. Sam Lemon, whose maternal great-great grandparents arrived in Media as runaway slaves during the Civil War, will discuss his ancestors’ journey to freedom and the start of Media’s thriving Black community. Given refuge and support by local Quakers, his family prospered and became prominent members of the Borough. Their descendants have lived on Olive Street in Media since 1872.
Dr. Lemon served for 15 years as an assistant professor and the director of a graduate program at Neumann University in Pennsylvania, and formerly worked in the fields of social services, education, and public television at WHYY in Philadelphia. He is the author of two books and is currently working on a third. His first novel, Go Stand Upon the Rock (2012) is based on his family’s strong oral and cultural traditions.

His second book, The Case That Shocked the Country: The Unquiet deaths of Vida Robare and Alexander McClay Williams (2017), is the true story of a 16-year-old African American teenager at Glen Mills School in Delaware County who was convicted in 1931 of a murder he did not commit, and was the youngest person executed by the state of Pennsylvania. However, after 30 years of Dr. Lemon’s detailed research and advocacy, Alexander McClay Williams was finally exonerated in court when his 1931 conviction was overturned in June 2022, and all charges against him were dropped.