Philadelphia’s Temple University is located on Cecil B. Moore Avenue, a small portion of Columbia Avenue between Front and 33rd Street. Not many of the thousands of students who walk it each day know much about the historical Cecil Moore, the president of the local chapter of the NAACP at one of the tensest moments in the city’s civil history. A (false) rumor began circulating that the Philadelphia police beat to death a pregnant black women laid bare the inter-ethnic tension gripping the city for months, and violence exploded.

On this day, August 28, in 1964, a riotous crowd of African Americans rose up in northern Philadelphia, protesting not only the alleged police brutality but also the lack of economic opportunity and more general segregation and mistreatment they faced on a daily basis. While the overmatched Philadelphia police retreated from the area, Columbia Avenue’s mostly white-owned businesses burned.

After two days, the rioting was finally quelled with assistance from Moore. Although considered to be dangerous and violent himself, Moore prevailed the angry mob to go home, and the riot was over. For helping to defuse the volatile situation, Moore was honored in 1987 with the renaming of the street after him.