Nestled just south, and right under the nose, of the central point of the original capital city of America: Philadelphia, the birthplace of the nation's first central bank, produces the bustling Seventh Ward neighborhood. By the late nineteenth century it became the largest black neighborhood in the North -- including a panoply of professions. Its mere existence, studied by scholars in 1899, refuted the well-worn notion of a black monolith. It was, and still is, flanked by the oldest independent black institution -- the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church -- with its own mantra: "To Seek for Ourselves."