All Wars Memorial to Colored Soldiers and Sailors

Philadelphia’s All Wars Memorial to Colored Soldiers and Sailors honors Pennsylvania’s African American servicemen who fought from the American Revolutionary War through World War I. Commissioned by the Commonwealth in 1927 after legislation championed by Samuel Beecher Hart, it was designed by J. Otto Schweizer and dedicated in 1934. The monument pairs allegorical figures with Black soldiers and sailors in World War I uniforms, making them the central focus. Its history also reflects exclusion: despite plans for the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, officials placed it in a remote park site until restoration and relocation to Logan Square in 1994. It remains a rare early twentieth-century civic tribute and a record of the struggle for public recognition.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania · United States