Brother Louis A. Potter, a student in the School of Agriculture, a course in Agricultural Chemistry, is also a Philadelphian. He holds the honor of being the pioneer Negro student in this course at State. Potter entered in the fall of 1917 and will graduate in June 1921. He has had the distinction of ranking high in the first quarter of his class throughout the three years of his undergraduate life and will undoubtedly finish in the same high position.
While matriculating to Penn State College, Potter joined the Cosmopolitan Club (Corda Fratres) in 1919 along with future founder G.D. Brooks. The Cosmopolitan Club of the Pennsylvania State College was founded in 1910 by American and international students. The main object of the organization is "to promote a better understanding of the political, economic and literary phases of different countries." The club belongs to the Association of Cosmopolitan Clubs, a branch of the Corda Frates, the International Federation of Students, whose object is to encourage mutual understanding among the students of the world. What Cosmopolitan stands for can well be summed up in the motto: "Above all nations is Humanity."
Potter was also an active member of the Agricultural Society as a freshman in 1919. An agricultural society, also known as an agrarian society, is a society that constructs social order around a reliance upon farming. The social order in an agricultural community is generally very different than normal social mobility. Because farming is the basis for an agricultural society, the land is of utmost value. Therefore, those who own land hold more power than those who do not.
Potter is a charter member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity's Nu Chapter. The Fraternity brought him into the fold on March 15, 1921, as a Senior.
Potter was born on April 10, 1898, in Philadelphia. The Potter family home located at 1436 South 18th in South Philadelphia was a two-story brick row in the Point Breeze neighborhood. He attended public schools there.
Potter registered for the World War I draft on September 12, 1918, as a 20-year-old student at Pennsylvania State College. On October 8, 1918, Potter was inducted and received student Army Training C in State College Pennsylvania until discharge. He was appointed the rank of Private. Potter was Honorably discharged from the Army on demobilization on December 18, 1918. Potter graduated from Pennsylvania State College in 1921.
After graduating from Pennsylvania State College, while teaching at South Carolina State College (Colored Normal Industrial Agricultural and Mechanical College of South Carolina) , Orangeburg, South Carolina, on May 28, 1924, Potter was issued a passport for a journey to Europe (France, England, and Germany). Studying abroad was the object of the visit, and Potter put this temporary arrangement for 90 days. He set his travel to leave the port of departure in New York and sail onboard the Rochambeau on June 4, 1924. Upon completing his study abroad, Potter boarded the S.S. La Savoie sailing from Le Havre, France, on August 25, 1924, arriving at Port of New York on September 2, 1924.
In 1930 Potter resided in South Philadelphia at 1330 South 16th Street with his mother, wife, and other family members. Potter taught as a teacher in the public schools system of Philadelphia. By 1940, Potter, a teacher, wife Edna, and son Louis lived 223 North 53 Street in West Philadelphia.
In the early 40s, Potter continued as a teacher by the School District of Philadelphia. His place of employment was Harrison School at 11th and Thompson Streets. William Henry Harrison School is a historic school building located in the Yorktown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, designed by architect Irwin T. Catharine and constructed from 1928 to 1929. It is a three-story brick building, nine bays wide on a raised basement in the Late Gothic Revival style. (currently St. Malachy Catholic School).
On February 16, 1942, Potter registered for the World World II draft at 43. Potter would continue teaching and living in Philadelphia with his family. In his later years, he was residing in Center City, Philadelphia. 211-30-9852
Address: 1801 Kennedy Blvd
Residence: Philadelphia, PA 19124
Second Residence Date: 1977
Second Address: 1616 Penn Towers
Second Residence: Philadelphia, PA 19103
Third Residence Date: 1980
Third Address: 225 S 18th St Unit 818
Third Residence: Philadelphia, PA 19103-6127
Brother Potter entered Omega Chapter in November 1987 at age 89.
Philadelphia Daily News Obituary: December 2, 1987
Louis A. Potter, a pioneer in the field of special education and teacher in the Philadelphia public schools for 42 years, died Monday. He was 89 and lived in Center City.
Potter's creative approach to special education seemed unorthodox in 1926, but he later proved to be decades ahead of his time. In later years, a promising teacher in the public school system would be placed at Harrison School at 11th and Thompson streets just to learn by being around Potter.
Though his long tenure at Harrison was a boon to thousands of youngsters, he did not arrive there by any grand design or intuitive placement by school authorities.
"At that time (1926), being black and having a master's degree in biology would get you a cup of coffee and a trip on the subway if you had the money," said his son, Louis
If Potter was dumped in what was considered a backwater of the system, it didn't deter him from making it a national model that would one day bring the Ford Foundation to his doorstep for guidance and advice.
The youngsters who confronted Potter in the 1920s ranged in age from 10 to 17 and were generally considered to be retarded. But Potter knew this was not true in many cases. The kids he saw in 1926 and for years afterward were the children of the great black migration north that occurred just after World War I.
Many of these children had never been in a classroom in the Deep South and had never come close to an academic environment. Once inside the school system, they were immediately labeled "feeble minded" or "slow”.
Before returning to his native Philadelphia, Potter had taught biology under Dr. George Washington Carver at Tuskegee Institute. He also taught at South Carolina State College at Orangeburg, S.C.
With this background, Potter melded the "self-help" concepts of Booker T. Washington and the social advocacy of W.E.B. DuBois to write his own program, his son said.
In one program, described to a reporter in 1954, Potter took his students on 12 trips, which included the port, historic buildings, housing, farms, and industry.
He said the purpose of the program was to "broaden the horizon, rouse the interest and develop understanding" for those who had never been on a farm, seen industry or ridden in a boat or even been inside a one-family dwelling.
He loved taking students, and his own son, on walks through the city. On his father's side, his family had been here since colonial times. He could recite the history of buildings as he passed them and make the past live again in young imaginations.
After a field trip, the students would make clay or flour and salt models of what they had seen. He fought against the system's stereotyping of his students by developing ways of teaching all of the academic skills, including mathematics, English and manual arts.
Potter's son, a former Philadelphia Tribune reporter and WCAU-TV producer and now a television screenwriter and producer in New York, said that many of his father's students went on to finish college.
Friendly, but always carrying a reservoir of dignity and decorum, Potter wrote a few articles on his work but probably would not have fared well in the "publish or perish” world of academia today. His son said his father felt his real contribution could be best made in the classroom and in teaching other teachers to teach. If there was little public recognition of his accomplishments, what he had done was known among educators on a national level.
He was asked to serve as prime consultant to the Ford Foundation's Great Cities Project of the late 1950s and early 1960s. This project resulted in a major re-evaluation of public education in the United States, But Potter was not encouraged by certain trends he saw in education in his later years, said his son. Potter, said young Louis, "felt that it had been a retrograde process, things going back, rather than going forward.' "He also was a strong supporter of the teachers' union, but sometimes despaired that the professional dedication of his generation was no longer the norm.
Potter was a graduate of South Philadelphia High School and received his bachelors of science degree from Pennsylvania State University. He was a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity and the Philadelphia Schoolman's Club.
Potter's late wife was the former Edna Williams. She died in 1968. In addition to his son, he is survived by a grandson, Niles Stewart, and several nieces and nephews.
Services will be at noon Saturday at the Kirk and Nice Funeral Home, Germantown Avenue and Washington Lane, where friends may call one hour before the service. Burial will be in Eden Cemetery, Springfield Road, Collingdale, Delaware County.
