Acel Moore, who passed away at the age of 75, was an old-school journalist who cultivated sources from the grassroots level to the upper echelons of Philadelphia society. Acel couldn’t enter a room without being greeted by enthusiastic well-wishers, including many who over the years had found themselves roasting from the heat of one of his columns. Most, though, were genuinely fond of a native son from South Philly who had made good.

In 1977, Moore, along with Wendell Rawls Jr., won journalism’s most prestigious award, the Pulitzer Prize. He then founded the Acel Moore High School Journalism Workshop in 1985 as part of his lifelong commitment to open up journalism careers to multicultural high school students. Over the years, hundreds of students have participated in the program, and many have taken jobs in the media or used skills they learned to build successful careers in other fields.