FROM THE EDITOR

Shirley Corsey grew up down the street from the Bethel AME Church in Yardley, where members of the borough’s African American community would gather each Sunday in a communal display of faith and fraternity. Corsey was not a congregant at the church, but as a Black woman and a third-generation Yardley resident, she understood its significance.

When the congregation foundered and the church closed its doors, the building sat empty for decades. And though she had moved away from Yardley, Corsey remained attuned to the comings and goings of her hometown, including the decaying state of the old church down the street from her family’s home. When she moved back to Yardley, she set her sights on restoring the nearly 150-year-old building. “I felt very strongly that it needed to be preserved,” she says, “because it’s essentially the last landmark indicating that Black people were here.”

After overseeing the restoration of the building—no small feat considering its condition—she set out to create an institution that would honor the history of African Americans in Yardley and across Bucks County. Never mind that she had no formal experience in this sort of work. As Leslie Garisto Pfaff writes: “Corsey envisioned a space where people from all over could find community and learn untold and under-told stories about African American history.”

The result is Gather Place, a museum in which Corsey also delivers lectures while portraying history-making Black figures such as Harriet Tubman. Opened four years ago, Gather Place is—for now, at least—a little-known cultural gem in the River Towns. With Corsey at the helm, it’s unlikely to remain little known for long. “She Had a Dream,” Leslie’s profile of Shirley Lee Corsey, starts on page 68.