RIP – Remembering Earl Harvey (Fierce Advocate for Black Business in Philly)

I just learned that our friend Mr. Earl Harvey passed away suddenly. I have no further information, if you do feel free to post it here. Earl was the publisher of the Black Professionals Newspaper in Philadelphia. But he was so much more than that. he was the type of brotha who would pop up everywhere around town. It seemed like Earl knew everyone in the city and visa versa. He was a positive brotha, who was about building community!

The picture you see above is evidence of that. Kevin Amos and I were working a table for Soul-Patrol at the Berks Jazz Festival. Earl came strolling by and what started out as a 5 min conversation ended up with Earl staying and helping us to work the table, doing interviews, signing up passersby to our mailing list, talking music, etc. Earl was also instrumental in helping me to get the Soul-Patrol Convention established in Philadelphia. He used to run full page ad’s in his publication at no charge, to help. I’ll always be grateful to him for his friendship. My condolences to his family.

I think that in honor of Earl, I want to permanently dedicate this page to news and information about Black Owned Businesses. Earl was a passionate advocate for Black Owned Businesses. You know, after he would run those full page ads in his newspaper for the Soul-Patrol Convention each year, I would offer to reciprocate on the Soul-Patrol website. He would always tell me the same thing; “Nah bro, that’s ok, just pass it forward….”

I think that I will use this page to do just that and use it to feature some news or to feature a great Black Owned Business that I want to tell Soul-Patrol’s audience about. I want to start with this great interview with Earl, by Clyde Hughes of FrontRunnerNewjersey.com that was conducted just before his passing. Check it out at the following link…