K. Leroy Irvis, Pa.’s first Black House speaker, blazed trails and battled discrimination | Column
Updated Mar 14, 2021;
Posted Mar 14, 2021
K. Leroy Irvis, Pennsylvania House speaker for eight years in the 1970s and 1980s, poses in the House chamber in Harrisburg in 1985. The trailblazing lawmaker died 15 years ago this month. (Associated Press file photo)
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On the South Lawn of the Capitol Complex at Fourth and Walnuts streets stands a monument.
Dedicated last year, it depicts four Black figures who had ties to the Old 8th Ward, a predominantly African American and immigrant neighborhood in Harrisburg that was removed when the Capitol Complex expanded in the early 20th century.