During the 20th and 21st centuries, Black Philadelphians actively campaigned against discrimination and continued to contribute to Philadelphia's cultural, economic and political life as workers, activists, artists, musicians, and politicians.

When the slave trade increased due to a shortage of European workers during the 1750s and 1760s, approximately one to five hundred Africans were sent to Philadelphia each year.

By the time the American Revolution broke out in 1775, enslaved individuals were one-twelfth of the roughly sixteen thousand people who lived in Philadelphia.

Two of the individuals supporting the Patriot side were Cyrus Bustill, who worked as a ship's baker during the Revolution and later became a prominent Philadelphia businessman and activist, and James Forten, who served on a privateer at the age of fourteen and became a wealthy sailmaker and abolitionist.

[10] During the 1793 Philadelphia Yellow Fever Epidemic, Black residents were mistakenly believed to be immune to the disease, so they worked as carriers of the dead and tended to the sick and dying inside their homes.

Wealthy Black entrepreneur James Forten gave white abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison funding so he could start the anti-slavery newspaper The Liberator and contributed articles to it.

Despite the risks and racism they encountered, African-Americans continued to come to Philadelphia, since it was the closest major city to the Southern States, where slavery was still legal.

Most lived in South Philadelphia near what is today Center City, but there were smaller populations in Northern Liberties, Kensington, and Spring Garden.

[7] Robert Purvis, president of the biracial Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society from 1845 to 1850, was also chairman of the General Vigilance Committee from 1852 to 1857, which gave direct aid to fugitive slaves.

[17] During the Civil War, eleven African American Philadelphia regiments fought for the North, after the passage of the 1862 Second Militia Act allowing blacks to be enlist in the Army.

[18] After the Civil War, African Americans in Philadelphia, including Octavius V. Catto (1839–1871), organized to end segregation of the city's schools and streetcars and regain the right to vote.

[20] Also in 1893, Philadelphia high school student Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller created an art project that was included in The World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago and led to her future success as a multi-disciplinary artist.

[22] In 1896, Philadelphia poet, suffragist, and abolitionist Frances Harper helped found the National Association of Colored Women and served as its vice president.

[23] By then, she had already had a long career as a published writer, including works like her poem Bury Me In a Free Land, Sketches of Southern Life, and the novel Iola Leroy.

"[26] World War I brought an influx of black migrants from the rural South, who moved to Philadelphia lured by wartime jobs there during The great migration.

In July 1918, after two black families on Pine Street were attacked by white neighbors who burned household furnishings, G. Grant Williams, editor of the Philadelphia Tribune, wrote of the "Pine Street war Zone": "We stand for peace," he said, and advised Black residents to "stand your ground like men," adding “You are not down in Dixie now and you need not fear the ragged rum crazed hellion crew...

[30] Black Opals, an African American literary magazine associated with the Harlem Renaissance was published in Philadelphia between spring 1927 and July 1928,.

[32] Also in the 1920s, John T Gibson became the wealthiest Black entrepreneur in Philadelphia because of his ownership of the popular Standard and Dunbar theaters and his management of diverse musical and vaudeville acts.

[34] And yet by 1935, African Americans owned 9,855 homes and 787 stores; they were also working in more professional occupations, like physicians ( 200); clergymen ( 250); schoolteachers (553) and policemen ( 219).

[36] Philadelphia was a center for the mid twentieth century Golden Age of Gospel music, attracting performers like the nationally renowned male quartets the Dixie Hummingbirds  and the Sensational Nightingales, as well as Marion Williams before she started her solo career.

Cecil B. Moore, president of the local NAACP, was a leading activist during that time, and Reverend Leon Sullivan was instrumental in building Black community and economic power.

Another important center of Black Power was The Church of the Advocate in North Central Philadelphia, whose congregation had become increasingly African American.

It moved funk more towards the disco sound that would become popular in the late 1970s and influenced later Philadelphia-born music makers like singer Jill Scott.

In 1985, another conflict resulted in a police helicopter dropping a bomb onto the roof of the MOVE compound, a townhouse that was located at 6221 Osage Avenue.

[46] Other residents displaced by the destruction of the bombing filed a civil suit against the city and in 2005 were awarded $12.72 million in damages in a jury trial.

[49] Many black Philadelphia natives have moved to the suburbs or to Southern cities such as Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Birmingham, Memphis, San Antonio and Jackson.

[50][51] Despite the persistence of problems like unemployment and high public school dropout rates, the black community in Philadelphia in the early 21st century continued to attract new residents and contribute its talents and energy to the city.

The majority originated from other states and held professional positions, including artists, graduate students, musicians, teachers, and writers.

The number of Black residents in zip code 19120—which includes the neighborhoods of Olney and Feltonville and abuts Montgomery County -rose from 9,786 in 1990 to 33,209 in 2010, an increase of 239 percent.

[55] The African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, established in 1792, was the first house of worship created by and for Black people in the United States.