Franklin Wilhamina “Frankie Mae” Scott was born in 1905 in Clinton, Louisiana, near Baton Rouge, to Henreatta and Louis Scott. She grew up in Chicago, Illinois, with her nine older siblings and moved to Pittsburgh in 1936 with her husband, Charles H. Pace.
The couple owned a gospel music store, the Old Ship of Zion Music Company (later changed to the Charles H. Pace Music Publishers) on Centre Avenue. Charles and Frankie quickly made themselves fixtures in the Hill District community.
As a young woman, Frankie had wanted to become a social worker, but had limited means to attend college. Instead, she served the Hill community through volunteer work and community organizing. Pace especially devoted herself to improving education and housing in the Hill District. She quickly emerged as a catalyst, described by Henry Freeman of the United Way Family and Children’s Services as a “‘real honest-to-goodness community leader" for disenfranchised communities.
Mrs. Pace was an original member of the Homeowners and Tenants Association—the first group to protest City Hall during Pittsburgh Mayor David L. Lawrence’s tenure; that group eventually became the Citizens Committee for Hill District Renewal (CCHDR), which Pace founded with realtor Robert Lavelle and civil rights activist Jim McCoy. The CCHDR was instrumental in organizing community leadership to insure urban redevelopment in the Hill District be done only with community input.
I knew that ...if you wanted something done in your neighborhood you had to find out who to see to get it done, then go there and speak up.In 1954, Mayor David Lawrence named Mrs. Pace to a special committee to combat poverty in Pittsburgh, on which she served for sixteen years. She was also involved with many programs of Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" in the 1960s, including Model Cities and the Office of Economic Opportunity.
-Frankie Pace
In 1967, Pace testified before a U.S. Senate Sub-Committee on Manpower and Poverty in support of President Johnson’s "war on poverty." Amidst the escalating Vietnam War, she spoke directly and with conviction, telling the Senators that “if we can spend billions of dollars to destroy life, we ought to spend millions of dollars to save life.”
Her community service also included a membership on the Board of Directors for the Urban League of Pittsburgh and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) of Pittsburgh, and a number of other community organizations. She was a lifelong active member of the Rodman Street Baptist Church
Frankie Pace's devotion to the Hill District came from a deep religious faith, a desire to serve others, and an understanding of her responsibilities in the community. In an interview before her death in 1989, Pace stated, “‘I already knew even by the time I came here if you wanted something done in your neighborhood you had to find out who to see to get it done, then go there and speak up.’” The Hill benefited because Frankie Pace spent her life doing just that.
In 2021, the City of Pittsburgh honored Mrs. Pace with the newly-opened Frankie Pace Park located between the Lower Hill and downtown.
