In Uptown News

  Linda Gayle Waters Richardson November 21, 1946-November 2, 2020  

 Linda Richardson was born in Philadelphia, PA to the late Lester and Bertha Waters. She received her formal education in the Philadelphia Public School system and was a proud graduate of Overbrook High School. She was a devoted community builder, daughter, older sister, wife, mother and grandmother. She married the late Donald Richardson, in 1965, and from that union had Aissia Richardson and Tarik Richardson. In 1982 she then married the late Yahya Abdul Karim and they became the power couple on Avenue of the Arts-North Broad Street in the 1990’s most known for their work with the Black United Fund, Uptown Theater, Garvey-Wells Bookstore and actively participated in Temple University’s Pan-African Studies Community Education Program (PASCEP) . They had two biological children together, Monifa Young and Mariama Wood and also served in parental roles to Keshia Jones and Gerald Covert. Passionate about the arts, she worked her first job long enough to save money to get an Associate’s degree from the Philadelphia Dance Academy in 1967 where she majored in Dance and Theater. She was a performer, fundraiser and wardrobe designer for a North Philadelphia theater arts group called, The Black Butterfly. After working in and teaching theater/dance for the Philadelphia Recreation Department and School District of Philadelphia for many years, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is what propelled her to a life of activism and community building. She was rehearsing for a play with the integrated Theater 14 at Heritage House in North Philadelphia when the actors heard commotion outside: a community enraged, feeling hopeless and discussing economic oppression and racial disparity. She spoke to them about art, hope and vision but felt her cultural work was irrelevant. It was then she began transitioning to do community organizing for the People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice and, later, Triple Jeopardy. From 1972 to 1979 she was hired as co-director of the People’s Fund, the precursor of Bread and Roses Community Fund, a progressive social change foundation.