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Black History Month Event Honors Local Pioneers

Harvey, Rodgers honored for community service and dedication to region

By Staff Reports
The Tube City Almanac
February 17, 2025
Posted in: Announcements

Arlene Harvey and JoAnne Rodgers will be honored Saturday during a Black History Month celebration at McKeesport Regional History & Heritage Center. (Submitted photos)

McKeesport Regional History & Heritage Center and a group of alumni from historically Black colleges and universities will celebrate Black History Month with a program this Saturday honoring two local pioneers.

“Dare to Be the First” will be held from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday at the Heritage Center, 1832 Arboretum Drive, Renziehausen Park. The event is free and open to the public.

The guests of honor will be Arlene Harvey, who retired after a career at Carnegie Library of McKeesport, and JoAnne Rodgers, the first Black school nurse in the McKeesport Area School District, said Denise Sinker of McKeesport HBCU Vision.

Created in 1926 as Negro History Week, Black History Month is celebrated nationwide in February to honor President Abraham Lincoln, who was born Feb. 12, and abolitionist and civic leader Frederick Douglass, who was born Feb. 14. President Gerald Ford designated an entire month for Black history in 1976 and the observance has since spread around the world.

This year’s theme, as designated by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, is “African Americans and Labor” and celebrates the contributions of Black Americans in the workforce and as volunteers in their communities.

Harvey is a graduate of McKeesport Area Vocational-Technical High School and longtime trustee of Zion Baptist Church, where she has taught Sunday school, served on the usher board, been a member of the senior choir, and volunteered with the HIV/AIDS committee. She has been a board member of the Heritage Center.

Rodgers, a graduate of Penn State University and the Freedmen’s Hospital School of Nursing at Howard University, was the first Black nurse hired by the school district in 1971. A member of the NAACP McKeesport Unit, Mon River Fleet Lions Club, Semper Fidelis Club and McKeesport College Club, she also has served as a board member of the Heritage Center as well as on the Partnership for Minority HIV/AIDS Prevention Committee.

For more information about Saturday’s event, call (412) 443-4058 or email dsinkler1@gmail.com.

Originally published February 17, 2025.

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