Penn landed near the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers. Unlike previous European settlers, Penn made a treaty with the local Native American tribe of Delaware and paid for the land that he and his followers would settle. Penn then set out to build capital for his new settlement. He named this capital Philadelphia after the biblical Greek colony, whose name meant city of brotherly love.
Penn wanted Philadelphia to be a utopia based on Quaker principles of intellectualism and openness. Penn declared religious and political freedom the law of the country. Ideas unique at the time, but concepts that would eventually become the fundamental values of a nation. After nearly 70 years of GOP dominance, Democrats formed the Greater Philadelphia Movement, whose influence led to reforms and improvements, such as the Food Distribution Center in southwest Philadelphia.
More than 10,000 African Americans from the Philadelphia area enlisted in the United States Troops of Color during the Civil War and trained at Camp William Penn. Philadelphia is known for the enthusiasm of its sports fans, and Citizens Bank Park, which opened in 2004 as home to the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team, is a meeting point of cheers and mockery during the baseball season. The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia is a civic project to build “the most comprehensive and authoritative reference source ever created for the Philadelphia region. Follow The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia on Instagram Follow Backgrounders on Twitter Like The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia on Facebook.
Philadelphia was one of the first American cities with a branch of fraternal society known as the Masons, whose ornate temple in Philadelphia is one of the most prominent in all Freemasonry. MOVE, a controversial Philadelphia-based organization often associated with the Black Power movement, is best known for a 1985 incident in which Philadelphia police dropped an incendiary device at its West Philadelphia headquarters.