{"id":1,"featured":0,"modified":"2025-03-17 22:08:57","latitude":40.44535664526145,"longitude":-79.97576398597812,"title":"Mrs. Frankie Pace","address":"2209 Centre Ave.","thumbnail":"https:\/\/hillhistory.org\/files\/square_thumbnails\/f68a4af4e6c2bbd24a4ad685f1449d31.jpg","creator":[],"description":"Franklin Wilhamina \u201cFrankie Mae\u201d Pace was born in 1905 in Clinton, Louisiana, near Baton Rouge, to Henreatta and Louis Scott. She grew up in Chicago, Illinois, with her nine older siblings and moved to Pittsburgh in 1936 with her husband, Charles H. Pace.

The couple owned a gospel music store, the Old Ship of Zion Music Company (later changed to the Charles H. Pace Music Publishers) on Centre Avenue.\u00a0 Charles and Frankie quickly made themselves fixtures in the Hill District community.

As a young woman, Frankie wanted to become a social worker, but had limited means to attend college.\u00a0 Instead, she served the Hill community through volunteer work and community organizing. Pace especially devoted herself to improving education and housing in the Hill District. She quickly emerged as an icon, described by Henry Freeman of the United Way Family and Children\u2019s Services as a \u201c\u2018real honest-to-goodness community leader\" for disenfranchised communities.

Mrs. Pace was an original member of the Homeowners and Tenants Association\u2014the first group to protest City Hall during Pittsburgh Mayor David L. Lawrence\u2019s tenure; that group eventually became the Citizens Committee for Hill District Renewal (CCHDR), which Pace founded with realtor Robert Lavelle<\/a> and civil rights activist Jim McCoy. The CCHDR was instrumental in organizing community leadership to ensure urban redevelopment in the Hill District be done only with community input.
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I knew that ...if you wanted something done in your neighborhood you had to find out who to see to get it done, then go there and speak up.
-Frankie Pace<\/strong><\/blockquote>\r\nIn 1954, Mayor David Lawrence named Mrs. Pace to a special committee to combat poverty in Pittsburgh, on which she served for sixteen years. She was also involved with many programs of Lyndon Johnson's \"Great Society\" in the 1960s, including Model Cities and the Office of Economic Opportunity.

In 1967, Pace testified before a U.S. Senate Sub-Committee on Manpower and Poverty in support of President Johnson\u2019s \"War on Poverty.\" Amidst the escalating Vietnam War, she spoke directly and with conviction, telling the Senators that \u201cif we can spend billions of dollars to destroy life, we ought to spend millions of dollars to save life.\u201d

Her community service also included a membership on the Board of Directors for the Urban League of Pittsburgh and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) of Pittsburgh, and a number of other community organizations. She was a lifelong active member of the Rodman Street Baptist Church

Frankie Pace's devotion to the Hill District came from a deep religious faith, a desire to serve others, and an understanding of her responsibilities in the community. In an interview before her death in 1989, Pace stated, \u201c\u2018I already knew even by the time I came here if you wanted something done in your neighborhood you had to find out who to see to get it done, then go there and speak up.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 The Hill benefited because Frankie Pace spent her life doing just that.

In 2021, the City of Pittsburgh honored Mrs. Pace with the newly-opened Frankie Pace Park<\/a> located between the Lower Hill and downtown.","sponsor":"","subtitle":"Hill District Activist, Businesswoman, Leader","accessinfo":"","lede":"","website":"","related_resources":["\u201cHonest-to-Goodness Leader for Community Poor,\u201d Pittsburgh Post-Gazette<\/i>, January 3, 1977.","BEKKA RASUL Lifestyle Editor, \u201cMrs. Frankie Pace\u202f: \u2018The Biggest Volunteer In The State\u2019:\u00a0Talking Books,\u201d New Pittsburgh Courier (1966-1981), City Edition<\/i>, April 1, 1978.","

Burch, Katie. \u201cFrankie Mae Pace.\u201d Pennsylvania Center for the Book<\/i>, pabook.libraries.psu.edu\/literary-cultural-heritage-map-pa\/bios\/Pace_Frankie. Accessed 6 Feb. 2024.<\/p>\r\n

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<\/p>"],"files":{"https:\/\/hillhistory.org\/files\/fullsize\/f68a4af4e6c2bbd24a4ad685f1449d31.jpg":{"id":1,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Mrs. Frankie Pace","thumbnail":"https:\/\/hillhistory.org\/files\/square_thumbnails\/f68a4af4e6c2bbd24a4ad685f1449d31.jpg","description":"Portrait of Frankie Pace standing in front of Pace\u2019s Music, also the headquarters of the Citizen\u2019s Committee for Hill District Renewal | Charles "Teenie" Harris"},"https:\/\/hillhistory.org\/files\/fullsize\/046e09e383857ff2707065185daa4984.jpg":{"id":2,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Frankie Pace Obituary","thumbnail":"https:\/\/hillhistory.org\/files\/square_thumbnails\/046e09e383857ff2707065185daa4984.jpg","description":"The obituary from the Pittsburgh Press<\/em> describes Pace's long service to the Hill District, calling her a \"longtime champion of the poor.\""},"https:\/\/hillhistory.org\/files\/fullsize\/03b96f5c5003db8bf23cd9fbd1dfbc36.jpg":{"id":3,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"Sheet music published by Charles H. Pace","thumbnail":"https:\/\/hillhistory.org\/files\/square_thumbnails\/03b96f5c5003db8bf23cd9fbd1dfbc36.jpg","description":"Charles H. Pace and Frankie Pace ran one of the earliest and most successful independent Black gospel music publishing businesses out of their Hill District store from the 1930s to the 1980s | Charles and Frankie Pace Collection"},"https:\/\/hillhistory.org\/files\/original\/41408b52df24b852097665b22a4b75cd.mp3":{"id":175,"mime-type":"audio\/mpeg","title":""Don't give up...you are the voters! You are the people!"","description":"Excerpt from 1973 interview in which Frankie Pace discusses the importance of direct citizen activism in protecting self-determination in the Hill. | Pittsburgh Renaissance Project: The Stanton Belfour Oral History Collection<\/a> | University of Pittsburgh<\/a>"}}}