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{{Short description|American politician}}
'''W. Wilson Goode''' (born [[August 19]], [[1938]]), the first [[African American]] [[Mayor]] of [[Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]], was born into a family of tenant farmers in [[North Carolina]] around 1938. Arriving in Philadelphia in 1954, Goode promptly plunged into the life of the city. He graduated from [[Morgan State University]], and after serving as a neighborhood leader, co-founder of the Black Political Forum, and manager of the unsuccessful 1971 mayoral campaign of State Representative Hardy Wiliams, earned a master's degree in government administration from the Fels Institute of Government [http://www.sas.upenn.edu/fels/] at the University of Pennsylvania.
{{portalpar|Philadelphia}}
{{for|his son, the Philadelphia City Council member|W. Wilson Goode Jr.}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2022}}
{{BLP sources|date=September 2018}}
{{Infobox officeholder
|image = Wilson Goode (1).jpg
|office = 95th [[Mayor of Philadelphia]]
|term_start = January 2, 1984
|term_end = January 6, 1992
|predecessor = [[William J. Green III|Bill Green]]
|successor = [[Ed Rendell]]
|birth_name = Woodrow Wilson Goode Sr.
|birth_date = {{birth date and age|1938|8|19}}
|birth_place = [[Seaboard, North Carolina]], U.S.
|death_date =
|death_place =
|party = [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]]
|spouse = {{marriage|Velma Goode|1960}}
|children = [[W. Wilson Goode Jr.]]
|education = [[Morgan State University]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]])<br>[[University of Pennsylvania]] ([[Master of Public Administration|MPA]])<br>[[Eastern University (United States)|Eastern University]] ([[Doctor of Ministry|DMin]])
}}
'''Woodrow Wilson Goode Sr.''' (born August 19, 1938) is a former [[List of mayors of Philadelphia|Mayor of Philadelphia]] and the first [[African Americans|African American]] to hold that office. He served from 1984 to 1992, a period which included the controversial [[MOVE (Philadelphia organization)|MOVE]] police action and [[1985 MOVE bombing|house bombing in 1985]]. Goode was also a community activist, chair of the state Public Utility Commission, and managing director for the City of Philadelphia.


==Early life==
⚫
After African-American state senators complained that there had never been an African-American member of the Public Utilities Commission, Governor [[Milton J. Shapp]] began actively searching for one. His aide, Terry Dellmuth, knew Goode from his community and political activities, and recommended him. Shapp &ndash; in Goode's judgement perhaps mistaking him for someone else &ndash; nominated him and the Senate confirmed him despite a recent record of obstructing Shapp's PUC choices.
Goode was born into a family of [[tenant farmer]]s near [[Seaboard, North Carolina]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://oxfordaasc.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195301731.001.0001/acref-9780195301731-e-35664|isbn = 978-0-19-530173-1|doi = 10.1093/acref/9780195301731.013.35664|chapter = Goode, W. Wilson|title = African American Studies Center|year = 2013|last1 = Holst|first1 = Arthur Matthew}}</ref> His family arrived in Philadelphia in 1953 and lived in the [[Paschall, Philadelphia|Paschall]] neighborhood in [[Southwest Philadelphia]]. He was an honors student at [[John Bartram High School]] and then he graduated from [[Morgan State University]] in 1961. He was a member of the Reserve Officers Training Corps while attending Morgan State and entered the [[United States Army|US Army]] as a First Lieutenant in the military police. He returned to Philadelphia and briefly worked as a manager at a building maintenance firm and as an insurance adjuster before he was hired by the Philadelphia Council for Community Development in 1967. He became executive director of PCCD in 1971. In 1967 he and his wife bought a house in the Paschall neighborhood, where he served as a deacon of Paschall's First Baptist Church. In 1968, he completed his graduate studies at the [[Fels Institute of Government]] at the [[University of Pennsylvania]] where he earned his master's in Public Administration.<ref>Bauman, John F. “W. Wilson Goode: The Black Mayor as Urban Entrepreneur.” ''The Journal of Negro History'' 77, no. 3 (1992): 141–58. {{doi|10.2307/2717558}}.</ref>


==Service with the Public Utility Commission==
⚫
As a PUC Commissioner, Goode met with community groups around the state, studied the issues intensively, compiled a pro-consumer record, and forged good working relations with his fellow commissioners. He was soon elevated to the Chairmanship of the PUC, where he continued his pro-consumer policies but worked to limit PUC expenditures.
⚫
After African-American state senators complained that there had never been an African-American member of the state Public Utility Commission (PUC), [[Governor of Pennsylvania|Governor]] [[Milton Shapp]] began actively searching for one. His aide, Terry Dellmuth, knew Goode from his community and political activities and recommended him.


⚫
As a PUC commissioner, Goode met with community groups around the state, studied relevant issues, compiled what was seen as a pro-consumer record, and forged good working relations with his fellow commissioners. He was soon elevated to the chairmanship of the PUC, where he continued his pro-consumer policies but worked to limit PUC expenditures.
[[Dick Thornburgh]]'s election as Governor of Pennsylvania in 1978 on the [[United States Republican Party|Republican]] ticket created a desire by Republicans to control the PUC. A Democratic PUC Commissioner, [[Helen O'Bannon]], was appointed by Thornburgh as Secretary of Public Welfare.


==Work in the Office of the Mayor==
Mayor of Philadelphia, and former United States Congressman, [[William J. Green]] (elected mayor in November, 1979) -- who had promised to appoint a black managing director after winning a racially divisive [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] primary against former deputy mayor [[Charles Bowser]] -- kept his promise by appointing Goode Managing Director after members of the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce actively joined key members of the black community and urged Green to appoint Goode. Seeking to unite the city of Philadelphia, Green went along with these recommendations and made Goode his managing director. Goode used this position to make himself extremely visible, attending community events around the clock. His campaigning for Mayor had already begun.
Philadelphia Mayor [[William J. Green, III|Bill Green]], who had been elected in November 1979, had promised to appoint a black managing director after winning a racially divisive [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] primary against former deputy mayor Charles Bowser. Green kept his promise by appointing Goode as managing director at the urging of key members of the black community. {{citation needed|date=May 2013}}


==Mayor of Philadelphia==
Then during the next primary election Green decided not to seek re-election when his wife, Patricia, became pregnant with their youngest child. Pat Green was in her 40's; due to health concerns for his wife and unborn child, Green withdrew from the race. Green stated that he did not want to put his wife through the stress of a campaign during the complicated pregnancy. His daughter, Maura Green, was born toward the end of his term.
⚫
Before the primary election of [[1983 Philadelphia mayoral election|1983]], Green decided not to seek reelection. Goode jumped into the race and defeated former Mayor [[Frank Rizzo]] in a racially polarized primary election. Goode went on to win the general election over former Green fund-raiser and [[Philadelphia Stock Exchange]] Chairman John Egan, the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]] nominee.


{{citation needed|date=May 2013}}
⚫
When Green withdrew from the primary election for a 2nd term, Goode jumped into the race. He defeated Rizzo in the primary election went on to win the general election against former Green fundraiser and Philadelphia Stock Exchange Chairman John Egan, the Republican nominee.


Goode's tenure as mayor was marred in 1985 by the [[1985 MOVE bombing|MOVE Bombing]], in which police attempted to clear a building in [[West Philadelphia]] inhabited by [[MOVE (Philadelphia organization)|MOVE]], a radical back-to-nature group, whose members, under the leadership of founder [[John Africa]], had long defied city officials by yelling slogans and statements from a megaphone, ignoring city sanitation codes, assaulting neighbors, and resisting law enforcement officers.<ref>{{cite web|last=Trippett|first=Frank|date=June 24, 2001|title=It Looks Just Like a War Zone|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,141842,00.html#ixzz2Ifp1aprq|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080206222839/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,141842,00.html#ixzz2Ifp1aprq|url-status=dead|archive-date=February 6, 2008|website=Time Magazine}}</ref> During the attempt to evacuate the compound, police used tear gas, leading to members of MOVE opening fire on them. During [[1985 MOVE bombing|the final assault on the building]], the police dropped an improvised bomb made of [[C-4 (explosive)|C-4]] plastic explosive and [[Tovex]], an explosive gel used in underwater mining, onto to a bunker-like cubicle on the roof of the building. This caused the house to catch fire, and ignited a massive blaze which eventually consumed almost 4 city blocks, killed 11 people, and left 240 people homeless.<ref name="Stevens 1985">{{cite news|last=Stevens|first=William K.|date=May 14, 1985|title=Police Drop Bomb on Radicals' Home in Philadelphia|newspaper=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/14/us/police-drop-bomb-on-radicals-home-in-philadelphia.html|url-status=live|access-date=August 31, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201109084013/https://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/14/us/police-drop-bomb-on-radicals-home-in-philadelphia.html|archive-date=November 9, 2020}}</ref>
Goode continued his heavy public schedule as Mayor, probably spending more time at public events than any of his Democratic predecessors. However, he failed to sell City Council on the necessity of a trash-to-steam plant to avoid using landfills, and the economics of landfill use soon changed, lowering landfill costs and raising incineration costs, making a trash to steam plant too expensive to be feasible.


In [[1987 Philadelphia mayoral election|1987]] Goode ran for reelection, winning the Democratic primary before facing off in the general election against former mayor Frank Rizzo, who had converted to the Republican Party after losing the 1983 Democratic primary to Goode. Goode defeated Rizzo 51%-49% to earn a second term. <ref>{{Cite web |date=1991-05-03 |title=CBS News/New York Times Monthly Poll, August 1990 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/icpsr09503.v2 |access-date=2024-02-27 |website=ICPSR Data Holdings}}</ref>
Goode's tenure as Mayor was marred by the [[MOVE]] controversy in which Goode bombed a MOVE compound in West Philadelphia and wound up burning an entire city block when the fire raged out of control. MOVE was a radical back to nature group which, under the leadership of founder [[John Africa]], had long made a nuisance of itself by ignoring city sanitation codes and barricading itself in houses when law enforcement came to enforce them.


==Post-mayoral life==
While public opinion initially supported Goode, an investigation by a commission appointed by Goode held extensive public hearings in which Goode's judgement was held up to public scrutiny. The negative publicity engendered helped elect Republican [[Ron Castille]] as District Attorney in 1985, and encouraged former District Attorney and unsuccessful 1986 Democratic primary gubernatorial candidate [[Ed Rendell]] to oppose him for the Democratic mayoral nomination in 1987. Goode defeated Rendell for the Democratic nomination, and then defeated the Republican nominee, former Mayor [[Frank L. Rizzo]], in the general election. In both primary and general elections, Philadelphia's black voters stuck by Goode, although with less enthusiasm than he had aroused in 1983.
Goode stayed active after leaving office as mayor by holding a position in the [[United States Department of Education|U.S. Department of Education]]. He earned a [[Doctor of Ministry]] at [[Palmer Theological Seminary]],<ref>{{Cite web|title=Reverend Dr. W. Wilson Goode Sr.|url=http://www.thepartnership.us/STARS/events/wg.php|access-date=November 30, 2008|publisher=The Partnership}}</ref> and became a minister and professor at [[Eastern University (United States)|Eastern University]], as well as a leader of advocacy for faith-based initiatives. He is CEO of [[Amachi (organization)|Amachi]], a mentoring program for children of incarcerated parents. He was awarded the Purpose Prize, a $100,000 award given to exceptional individuals over age 60 who are working to address critical social problems.


==References==
During the Green administration, the city budget had been balanced; the first few years of Goode's reign caused the city to go into debt again. Later, in an attempt to re-balance the city's budget, Goode pushed through tax increases raising the city's wage tax to an all-time high of 4.96%. Under his successors Ed Rendell and John F. Street, the city wage tax would gradually be reduced.
{{Reflist}}


==External links==
Goode was unable to maintain Philadelphia's black vote as a unified bloc. A well-funded and highly publicized attempt to purge Philadelphia City Councilman at Large [[David Cohen]], a leading critic of Goode's trash to steam proposal, backfired as Cohen came in first in total votes in the 1987 Council at Large Democratic Primary for the five seats to be filled, and set an all-time record for most votes received for that position in a Democratic primary. (Eighteen years later, Goode would be the only former Mayor of Philadelphia attending Councilman Cohen's funeral. His son and Cohen's City Council colleague, W. Wilson Goode, Jr., would eulogize Cohen at a special memorial service held in Philadelphia's City Council.)
*{{C-SPAN|2641}}


{{Portal|Biography|Philadelphia}}
In the 1991 Democratic Primary, three blacks &ndash; former Councilman [[Lucien E. Blackwell]], a strong Goode loyalist; [[George Burrell]], a Goode critic allied with Congressman [[William Gray]]; and [[James White]], Goode's managing director &ndash; faced white candidates Ed Rendell and [[Peter Hearn]], a former Chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association. Although White withdrew before the primary, Rendell won, getting 10% of the black vote as Blackwell and Burrell divided the rest.


⚫
{{s-start}}
Goode stayed active after leaving as Mayor, attending community meetings, hosting a radio show on WDAS, and holding mid-level positions in the [[United States Department of Education|U.S. Department of Education]]. He became active for a time in the [[personal development]] programs of [[Werner Erhard]]'s [[Landmark Education]], including the [[Landmark Forum]], a successor to [[Erhard Seminars Training|est]]. He earned a [[Doctor of Philosophy|Ph.D.]] in [[theology]] at [[Eastern University]], and became a highly regarded minister, leader of advocacy for faith-based initiatives, and leader of outreach to prisoners.
{{s-off}}
{{s-bef|before=[[William J. Green III|Bill Green]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Mayor of Philadelphia]]|years=1984–1992}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Ed Rendell]]}}
⚫
{{s-end}}


{{PhiladelphiaMayors}}
His son, [[W. Wilson Goode, Jr.]], was defeated for Councilman at Large in the 1991 Democratic Primary, but was appointed by Mayor Ed Rendell to a position in the city commerce department in 1992. Young Goode was elected Councilman at Large in 1999, with the active support of Democratic mayoral nominee [[John F. Street]], Chairman of the Council Appropriations Committee in the Goode Administration, and easily re-elected Councilman at Large in 2003. The younger Goode received more votes in African American wards than any other councilman at large candidate, and is considered a possible 2007 Democratic mayoral candidate.
{{Authority control}}


{{DEFAULTSORT:Goode, Wilson}}

[[Category:1938 births]]

[[Category:20th-century African-American politicians]]
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[[Category:20th-century American politicians]]

[[Category:African-American men in politics]]
{{succession box | before=[[William J. Green]] | title=[[Mayor of Philadelphia]] | years=1984&ndash;1992 | after=[[Ed Rendell]]}}
[[Category:21st-century African-American politicians]]

[[Category:African-American mayors in Pennsylvania]]
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[[Category:20th-century mayors of places in Pennsylvania]]

[[Category:1938 births|Goode, Wilson]]
[[Category:Eastern University (United States)]]
[[Category:Living people|Goode, Wilson]]
[[Category:Fels Institute of Government alumni]]
[[Category:Mayors of Philadelphia|Goode, Wilson]]
[[Category:John Bartram High School alumni]]
[[Category:Morgan State University alumni|Goode, Wilson]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Mayors of Philadelphia]]
[[Category:Morgan State University alumni]]
[[Category:Palmer Theological Seminary alumni]]
[[Category:Pennsylvania Democrats]]
[[Category:People from Seaboard, North Carolina]]

Revision as of 17:46, 7 August 2024

For his son, the Philadelphia City Council member, see W. Wilson Goode Jr.

Wilson Goode
95th Mayor of Philadelphia
In office
January 2, 1984 – January 6, 1992
Preceded byBill Green
Succeeded byEd Rendell
Personal details
Born
Woodrow Wilson Goode Sr.

(1938-08-19) August 19, 1938 (age 86)
Seaboard, North Carolina, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse
Velma Goode
​
(m. 1960)​
ChildrenW. Wilson Goode Jr.
EducationMorgan State University (BA)
University of Pennsylvania (MPA)
Eastern University (DMin)

Woodrow Wilson Goode Sr. (born August 19, 1938) is a former Mayor of Philadelphia and the first African American to hold that office. He served from 1984 to 1992, a period which included the controversial MOVE police action and house bombing in 1985. Goode was also a community activist, chair of the state Public Utility Commission, and managing director for the City of Philadelphia.

Early life

Goode was born into a family of tenant farmers near Seaboard, North Carolina.[1] His family arrived in Philadelphia in 1953 and lived in the Paschall neighborhood in Southwest Philadelphia. He was an honors student at John Bartram High School and then he graduated from Morgan State University in 1961. He was a member of the Reserve Officers Training Corps while attending Morgan State and entered the US Army as a First Lieutenant in the military police. He returned to Philadelphia and briefly worked as a manager at a building maintenance firm and as an insurance adjuster before he was hired by the Philadelphia Council for Community Development in 1967. He became executive director of PCCD in 1971. In 1967 he and his wife bought a house in the Paschall neighborhood, where he served as a deacon of Paschall's First Baptist Church. In 1968, he completed his graduate studies at the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania where he earned his master's in Public Administration.[2]

Service with the Public Utility Commission

After African-American state senators complained that there had never been an African-American member of the state Public Utility Commission (PUC), Governor Milton Shapp began actively searching for one. His aide, Terry Dellmuth, knew Goode from his community and political activities and recommended him.

As a PUC commissioner, Goode met with community groups around the state, studied relevant issues, compiled what was seen as a pro-consumer record, and forged good working relations with his fellow commissioners. He was soon elevated to the chairmanship of the PUC, where he continued his pro-consumer policies but worked to limit PUC expenditures.

Work in the Office of the Mayor

Philadelphia Mayor Bill Green, who had been elected in November 1979, had promised to appoint a black managing director after winning a racially divisive Democratic primary against former deputy mayor Charles Bowser. Green kept his promise by appointing Goode as managing director at the urging of key members of the black community. [citation needed]

Mayor of Philadelphia

Before the primary election of 1983, Green decided not to seek reelection. Goode jumped into the race and defeated former Mayor Frank Rizzo in a racially polarized primary election. Goode went on to win the general election over former Green fund-raiser and Philadelphia Stock Exchange Chairman John Egan, the Republican Party nominee.[citation needed]

Goode's tenure as mayor was marred in 1985 by the MOVE Bombing, in which police attempted to clear a building in West Philadelphia inhabited by MOVE, a radical back-to-nature group, whose members, under the leadership of founder John Africa, had long defied city officials by yelling slogans and statements from a megaphone, ignoring city sanitation codes, assaulting neighbors, and resisting law enforcement officers.[3] During the attempt to evacuate the compound, police used tear gas, leading to members of MOVE opening fire on them. During the final assault on the building, the police dropped an improvised bomb made of C-4 plastic explosive and Tovex, an explosive gel used in underwater mining, onto to a bunker-like cubicle on the roof of the building. This caused the house to catch fire, and ignited a massive blaze which eventually consumed almost 4 city blocks, killed 11 people, and left 240 people homeless.[4]

In 1987 Goode ran for reelection, winning the Democratic primary before facing off in the general election against former mayor Frank Rizzo, who had converted to the Republican Party after losing the 1983 Democratic primary to Goode. Goode defeated Rizzo 51%-49% to earn a second term. [5]

Post-mayoral life

Goode stayed active after leaving office as mayor by holding a position in the U.S. Department of Education. He earned a Doctor of Ministry at Palmer Theological Seminary,[6] and became a minister and professor at Eastern University, as well as a leader of advocacy for faith-based initiatives. He is CEO of Amachi, a mentoring program for children of incarcerated parents. He was awarded the Purpose Prize, a $100,000 award given to exceptional individuals over age 60 who are working to address critical social problems.

References

  1. ^ Holst, Arthur Matthew (2013). "Goode, W. Wilson". African American Studies Center. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195301731.013.35664. ISBN 978-0-19-530173-1.
  2. ^ Bauman, John F. “W. Wilson Goode: The Black Mayor as Urban Entrepreneur.” The Journal of Negro History 77, no. 3 (1992): 141–58. doi:10.2307/2717558.
  3. ^ Trippett, Frank (June 24, 2001). "It Looks Just Like a War Zone". Time Magazine. Archived from the original on February 6, 2008.
  4. ^ Stevens, William K. (May 14, 1985). "Police Drop Bomb on Radicals' Home in Philadelphia". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 9, 2020. Retrieved August 31, 2012.
  5. ^ "CBS News/New York Times Monthly Poll, August 1990". ICPSR Data Holdings. May 3, 1991. Retrieved February 27, 2024.
  6. ^ "Reverend Dr. W. Wilson Goode Sr". The Partnership. Retrieved November 30, 2008.
Political offices
Preceded by Mayor of Philadelphia
1984–1992 		Succeeded by
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