Phyllis Taylor, of Mt. Airy and Germantown for the last 55 years, a giant in the field of human rights, racial equity and social justice and the 2022 Volunteer of the Year for the Philadelphia Prison Society, died June 4 at Keystone Care Hospice in Wyndmoor of endometrial cancer. She was 84.
“Her entire life was about giving,” her son, Dr. Daniel Taylor, an associate professor at Drexel University Medical School, told the Local. “She refused to be someone who watched injustice and did nothing about it. Someone called her a merging of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Mother Teresa.”
I first met Taylor in 1973 when I was working for The Philadelphia Tribune and she was a University of Pennsylvania health services nurse testifying before the state’s House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on corrections. She had been volunteering at Holmesburg Prison for a year, and she was passionately pleading with state legislators to reform the abysmal conditions at the prison in Northeast Philadelphia.
“It is hard to believe how atrocious and sickening the conditions there really are,” she told me at the time. “Just because these inmates are in prison does not mean they should be abused and mistreated every day, and they are. They should be treated with the same dignity and respect all of us have a right to expect. How are they supposed to come out of prison and become responsible citizens otherwise? What is happening inside Holmesburg Prison is downright criminal.”
It is not unusual for young people to be idealistic and to volunteer for humanitarian causes but then turn their attention to the mundane work of making a living and raising a family. But Taylor tirelessly continued working for those causes for 60 more years.
“You keep doing it. You keep going and going and going,” she said last year on the Philadelphia Prison Society website. “Sometimes I’m burned out, but I don’t let myself be. That’s a luxury I don’t allow myself. … I really love what I do. I get the satisfaction of being able to journey with somebody, to let them know that they are not abandoned and alone.
“I really want people to know there is something they can do. Even as one grows older and has other responsibilities, if you want to get involved, you can.”
Dzemila Bilanovic, prison monitoring manager for eastern Pennsylvania, said last year, “Phyllis Taylor does immeasurable work with the Prison Society. I quickly realized what a wonderful person she is and how lucky we are that she is dedicating her time to volunteer with us. Phyllis gives her time and knowledge graciously. Above all, she deeply cares.”
Born in Brooklyn, Phyllis Claire Brody grew up in a Jewish household and joined a Quaker meeting after moving to Philadelphia. She once said her passion for justice came from her Jewish and Quaker faiths. She earned a degree at Beaver College (now Arcadia University) in Glenside in 1963. After nursing school, she became a volunteer nurse and then a consultant for the University of Pennsylvania health services.
She was arrested many times over the years while engaging in nonviolent protests, once spending 10 days in jail after being charged with civil disobedience. She went on Freedom Rides in the 1960s to protest legalized racial segregation and often protested against the Vietnam War in the 1970s.
Taylor, who also later became a chaplain in the Philadelphia prison system and a certified grief facilitator, was diagnosed with lupus in 1990. She wrote on the Lupus Foundation of America website that lupus caused her extreme pain, but medicine helped her manage it.
“I’ve worked with people in prison, people in countries with no running water or inside toilets and people in hospice for a number of years,” she told the Local in an earlier interview. “From these experiences I stay rooted in gratitude and remind myself of that every day.”
Her husband, Richard Knight Taylor, died in 2024 at age 91, also at Keystone Care Hospice. He was also involved in human rights causes for his entire adult life. The Taylors were instrumental in the founding of nonprofits Witness for Peace in Nicaragua and the Movement for a New Society in Philadelphia. Richard Taylor was a local organizer for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s Campaign and founded the Fair Housing Council of Delaware Valley in 1959, later starting other faith-based and social-service nonprofits. In the 1960s, he marched with Dr. King.
The Taylors were married for almost 62 years, most of which were spent living in Mt. Airy. From 2012 to 2024, however, they lived at the Stapeley Retirement Home in Germantown.
In addition to her son, she is survived by a daughter, Deborah Minja Taylor Wagner; sisters Margaret Noonan and Audrey Randolph; several grandchildren and great-grandchildren; and many other children and families who were welcomed into the Taylors’ home.
The Swarthmore College Peace Collection is the official repository for the papers of Richard and Phyllis Taylor. A celebration of Phyllis Taylor’s life will be held Sunday, Sept. 20, 2 p.m., at Germantown Monthly Meeting, 47 W. Coulter St. Donations in her name may be made to Face to Face, 123 E. Price St., Philadelphia, PA 19144 and/or the New Sanctuary Movement, Box 46242, Philadelphia, PA 19160.
Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.
