W. Wilson Goode served as both the managing director and mayor of the City of Philadelphia. But he introduced himself as neither when he shared his life story Monday night at the White Dog Cafe.
"I am the great-grandson of a slave," he told a group of 15.
Goode described to the small crowd how he went from being the son of a sharecropper in the South to holding the highest office in Philadelphia, and the difficulties he faced along the way.
Born in 1938, Goode described living with his family on a farm in North Carolina in a small house with no electricity, heating or running water.
Even bathing was a luxury.
"We all took a bath once a week," he said. "That was a ritual on Saturday."
And income wasn't the family's only problem -- Goode's father was an alcoholic.
After Goode's father was jailed in 1954 for trying to kill his mother, the family finally left him -- and the South -- for Philadelphia.
After the move, Goode said he wanted to continue his education, but his guidance counselor told him that he was not college material. Instead, he went to work for a tobacco company.
But Goode would soon find another path.
"I was rescued from all of that by a pastor and his wife in a little church," Goode said.
The couple mentored him, and in 1957 he entered college. Four years later, he graduated eighth in a class of 242.
After bouncing between several jobs, Goode went to work for the Philadelphia Council for Community Advancement in 1967, helping 50 nonprofit groups put up more than 2,000 houses.
"It was a time we could help a lot of people," he said.
In 1978, he joined the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission, and later was appointed managing director of Philadelphia.
In 1983, Goode became the city's first black mayor.
He attributed his quick rise to just doing his job.
"That was unusual, so people took notice," he said.
But soon after his election, he had to deal with tragedy. On May 13, 1985, police dropped a bomb on a row house where members of the anti-government group MOVE were holed up. Eleven people were killed and 61 homes destroyed as the entire block burned down.
"It was a devastating event that was brought about by a bad decision by a lot of folks on that day," Goode said.
After serving two terms, Goode left office, and in 1996 he said he "felt a call in [his] life to go into ministry."
At age 58, Goode went to the seminary, becoming a minister in 2000. Since then, he has spent much of his time directing Amachi, an organization that focuses on mentoring children who have one or more parents in prison.
"It's now time that we do something to rescue these children who, without our help... will end up in jail themselves," he said.
Goode's talk was part of the Philadelphia Stories series at the White Dog Cafe.
"I was moved by his story and so glad I came to hear it," said Paul Karlberg, associate pastor of Proclamation Presbyterian Church in Bryn Mawr, Pa., who leads the Amachi team there. "He was a child of an incarcerated parent, he's now helping others."
One audience member, who declined to give her name, challenged Goode about his role in the MOVE event.
"That was 18 years ago," he said in response. "It's one day in my life and... I have moved on, because God has more important things for me to do than dwell in the past."
