VOLUNTEER INDUCTEES

ANTHONY BOWEN (1805-1872)

In 1853 a former slave organized the first African-American YMCA. That was the Twelfth Street YMCA in Washington, D.C., later named YMCA Anthony Bowen and designated a National Historic Landmark. Inspired by his friend William Chauncey Langdon, founder of the YMCA of the City of Washington, Anthony Bowen was committed to the advancement of African-Americans in social, educational, and religious respects. Bowen’s YMCA grew out of his efforts to organize the African American community of Washington D.C. In 1839 he sponsored “The Colored Peoples Meeting House,” a meeting space for the free African-Americans of the city. In 1847 he opened a Sunday evening school for free men where they studied reading, writing and the Bible. With determination and dedication, YMCA Anthony Bowen was reorganized as a branch of the YMCA of the City of Washington in 1905. Bowen, the first African-American employee of the U.S. Patent Office, was also instrumental in founding St. Paul AME Church.

JOE FRIDAY (1888-1955)

Joe Friday was an American Indian of the Ojibway Tribe, born in a wigwam in northern Canada. Along with YMCA Director Harold Keltner and William Hefelfinger, he is credited as a founder of the first father-son YMCA Indian Guide tribe in St. Louis in 1925.

Friday had been a guide for Keltner’s hunting and fishing trips in Canada and Keltner invited Friday to come and work with him at the St. Louis association. Friday spoke before groups of boys and dads at the YMCA and found in them a keen interest in the Native American culture. The Indian Guides program grew out of those experiences. According to Indian Guide literature, Friday told Keltner “The Indian father raises his son. He teaches his son to hunt, track, fish, walk softly and silently in the forest, know the meaning and purpose of life and all he must know, while the white man allows another to raise his son.” Although the Indian Guides program has become Adventure Guides, the legacy of Friday and Keltner lives on in the father-son bonding experience.

YMCA HALL OF FAME 2013 Inductees