By Donald Gilpin

Henry F. Pannell

Henry F. Pannell, who died at his home on December 21, 2024 at the age of 85, is remembered in many tributes over the past weeks as “an activist and visionary, who spent his life giving back to the community that raised him as a child,” as stated in his official obituary published on legacy.com by Campbell Funeral Chapel of Trenton and originally delivered as a eulogy by Kathryn Watterson.

“Henry ‘Hank’ Pannell was not just a man of Witherspoon-Jackson; he was Witherspoon-Jackson — a cornerstone of our neighborhood, a keeper of its stories, and a builder of its future,” Councilman Leighton Newlin told the congregation gathered for the December 31 funeral at the First Baptist Church of Princeton.

“Hank was a true gentleman and a mentor to me all my life,” said longtime Princeton resident and former Councilman Lance Liverman. “I’ve known him all my life. You could always learn from him, and not just one thing, but many things.”

P.J. Young also knew Pannell as a mentor all his life. “I’m an avid fisherman, and Hank taught me to fish,” Young said. “I worked for him at the [Princeton Borough] Housing Authority when I was a youth.”

He continued, “Then our relationship grew and I learned from him and trusted him as a father figure. Our relationship was based on traveling and fishing and just kind of seeing the world. I was privileged and proud to know Hank, and I’m going to miss him dearly.”

Princeton resident Dosier Hammond described Pannell as “a great voice for the people in the neighborhood.” Hammond worked with Pannell on the Housing Authority and the Witherspoon-Jackson Development Corporation.

They also shared a love for books. “He loved to read,” said Hammond. “He loved to read history, especially African American history, but all history.”

Pannell was born in Princeton Hospital in 1939 and grew up in his family home on Jackson Street (now Paul Robeson Place).
As described in Watterson’s eulogy, Princeton was entirely segregated when Pannell was growing up in the 1940s, and he attended the Witherspoon School for Colored Children on Quarry Street until 1949 when he was transferred to fifth grade in the newly integrated Nassau Street School.

“That’s when I found out about discrimination,” Pannell said, as quoted by Watterson. The African American students “were pretty much ignored in the classroom and just geared towards general education.”

Pannell had to grow up fast after his mother died when he was 16 and his father wasn’t well. Young Pannell became the head of the household, and took on a variety of jobs during his high school years. After graduating from Princeton High School in 1957 he became the first African American employed as a technician with Jet Propulsion Laboratories at Forrestal Research Center, then later went to work in the print shop at the Institute for Advanced Study.

With his knowledge from the Institute print shop and the gift of a used printing press, Pannell teamed up with his brother and others to start a newspaper called “The Black Word,” which they distributed to everyone in the Black community in the 1960s.

In 1966 he was hired as the first Black maintenance mechanic for Palmer Square, then went on to join the Housing Authority of Princeton Borough, where he worked for 28 years. At the Housing Authority he set up a summer work program to hire young people, and it was at this time that he and the Housing Authority Director Marcy Crimmins created the idea for the Clay Street Learning Center, which Pannell and his staff built.

The Center has become a year-round fixture in the community for classes, education programs, and a summer learning camp. In 2003 it was renamed “The Henry F. Pannell Learning Center.”

Pannell was an original founder and president of the Witherspoon-Jackson Development Corp., formed to preserve the integrity of the neighborhood by purchasing and renovating properties to support home ownership at affordable prices.

He was also a cofounder of Save our Kids, a recipient of the 2000 Vivian Award for Community Service, a long-time board member and former board president of the Princeton Nursery School, and a board member of the Princeton Historical Society. He served on the advisory board of Community House and co-founded the Neighborhood Alliance.

In 1999, Pannell persuaded Watterson, who was a lecturer and writer at Princeton University at the time, to lead an oral history project to record stories of the residents of the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood “before it was too late.” A community effort assisted by Princeton University undergraduates resulted in more than 50 oral histories as well as the University’s first academic course focused on the history of the neighborhood.

This led to the 2017 book I Hear My People Singing: Voices of African American Princeton and a collection of interviews videotaped by Pannell that will be housed in the Paul Robeson Room of the Princeton Public Library.

“He was such an important person for the community because he really believed in educating and mentoring young people,” Hammond said. “There’s a reason it’s called the Hank Pannell Learning Center. He did a lot for young folks. He’s been a very important person in town for a long time.”