A national honor for Philadelphia activist Helen Gym
![Gym says Asian Americans United sparked her involvement: "People [at those groups] pushed my thinking every day. They . . . reminded me that power is the collective enterprise of people who build communities."](http://media.philly.com/images/600*450/20140331_inq_sgym31-b.JPG) |
| Gym says Asian Americans United sparked her involvement: "People [at those groups] pushed my thinking every day. They . . . reminded me that power is the collective enterprise of people who build communities." (SARAH J. GLOVER / File) |
Spend a few hours with Helen Gym, Philadelphia's famously feisty community organizer, and you see a rabble-rouser on the run, dashing from a TEDx talk rehearsal at Temple University to a rally for public education, where she revved up the crowd.
Gym speaks "truth to power," said State Sen. Vincent Hughes (D., Phila.), who introduced her at the rally Thursday after first teasing her for "troublemaking."
At a White House ceremony Monday, Gym, 45, a cofounder of Parents United for Public Education, a parent-led school watchdog group; and a board member of Asian Americans United, which advocates for ethnic diversity, will add another label to her brand: Cesar E. Chavez Champion of Change.
President Obama established the program to recognize those whose commitment to a more just tomorrow empowers whole communities, the White House announcement said.
The 10 honorees this year embody the steadfast determination of Chavez, who organized a union for California farm workers in the 1960s.
Chavez died in 1993. In 2011, Obama proclaimed March 31 Cesar Chavez Day. He encouraged all Americans to use it as an annual day of national service.
"One of the great lessons of Cesar's life [is] that you don't give up the fight," Obama said recently. "No matter how long it takes, no matter how long the odds, you keep going, fueled by a simple creed - 'Sí, se puede' " - roughly, "Yes, we can."
Clearly, Gym got the message.
She was born in Seattle and raised near Columbus, Ohio, by parents who emigrated from Korea in the 1960s. The immigrant tale of her father, Won Gym, presages the steely determination of Helen, the elder of two daughters.
Wounded during the Korean War, Won Gym recuperated in a prisoner of war camp, was released, and barely survived on the streets of Seoul. A high score on a national education test changed his luck by providing access to a scholarship to George Fox
