Charles Marvin Porter, principal, community activist, and former Inquirer ad manager, dies at 86

Charles Marvin Porter, 86, of West Chester, a former teacher and school principal in Delaware County, a popular community activist in West Chester, and a former advertising sales manager at The Inquirer, died Monday, Jan. 17, of a heart attack at Green Meadows rehabilitation and nursing center in Malvern.

Mr. Porter was a teacher and principal at Sidney Smedley Elementary School in Morton, which closed in the 1970s, and he taught classes in psychology and sociology at Harcum College. He was a founder in the early 2000s of West Chester’s East End Neighborhood Association, served on the Malvern Planning Commission, and sought racial diversity in the faculty as a member of the West Chester University board of trustees in the 1970s.

Mr. Porter, who retired from The Inquirer in 1994, worked at first as a supervisor of the newspaper’s truck drivers. He met a company vice president in an elevator one day and, using his gift of gab and persuasion, got himself transferred to the advertising department. There, he championed local Black-owned businesses and sponsored expositions in Philadelphia that brought them together.

He worked earlier as a recruiter and national sales manager for the Philadelphia-based Philco-Ford Corporation. He never planned to be a teacher or principal for long but became so attached to his students that, as principal, he would fill in himself when a teacher called in sick.

As a community leader in West Chester, he was on the board of the Charles A. Melton Arts and Education Center and directed projects that, among other achievements, reorganized the community center, improved housing, refurbished the neighborhood, and funded tutoring programs and scholarships.

“I remember his authoritative voice and blazing smile,” a friend and colleague wrote in an online tribute. “And oh, those parties in Malvern! He was a gentleman, a leader, a mentor and a man of great courage.”

Born in West Chester on June 2, 1935, Mr. Porter graduated from B. Reed Henderson High School in 1953, got his bachelor’s degree in education from Cheyney University, then Cheyney State Teachers College, and his master’s degree in education from Temple University.

He attended Cheyney after being turned away from West Chester State Teachers College, now West Chester University, due to racial quotas, and later was named by then-Gov. Milton Shapp to West Chester’s board of trustees.

“He told the other trustees that things will be changing now,” said Shirley Porter, his wife of 66 years. In an online tribute, a friend wrote, “We fought the good fight getting teachers of color on the faculty of W.C. State College.”

He met Shirley Durham when he was applying for admission to Cheyney, and they married in 1955. They raised daughters Cheryl and Diane, and son Charles, and lived in West Chester, Media, Bryn Mawr, Malvern, and elsewhere. His son died earlier.

Mr. Porter and his wife moved to St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands after he retired and owned and operated a bed and breakfast. They returned to West Chester in the early 2000s so he could be close to his cardiologist.

Mr. Porter had a variety of heart ailments over the course of his life and underwent many operations as an adult. But, relying on his religious faith and natural optimism, “He kept bouncing back,” his wife said.

“I will never forget his great enthusiasm of spirit and generosity of knowledge.”

Mr. Porter enjoyed making wine, racing pigeons, playing pinochle, building model airplanes, and painting watercolors. He ran unsuccessfully for the state legislature while living in Bryn Mawr and, as family historian, connected with hundreds of distant relatives in South Carolina and elsewhere and hosted elaborate reunions at his home.

“We discovered then that there were branches of the family in 10 different states,” Mr. Porter told The Inquirer in 1987. Friends recalled him as “pleasant, humble, wonderful, kind” and “caring.”

In addition to his wife and daughters, Mr. Porter is survived by two granddaughters, two great-grandsons, and a brother. A brother died earlier.

Services were Jan. 29.

Donations in his name may be made to the American Heart Association, P.O. Box 840692, Dallas, Texas 75284.