Faatimah Gamble is one-half of Philadelphia power couple

IT WAS A curious scene: a school cafeteria full of girls, some wearing headscarves, learning the art of continental dining.

They held their forks in their left hands, using the utensils to transfer sautéed brussels sprouts and orange-glazed chicken to their mouths - being careful to hold the tines down European-style. As they practiced, Faatimah Gamble, wife of legendary songwriter/producer Kenny Gamble, kept watch, handing one girl a lime-green folded cloth napkin and instructing another in the proper use of a knife.

For Gamble, fine-tuning the social and etiquette skills of local youngsters is a passion. She started and has run for the past two decades the Pearls of Wisdom character-building and social etiquette program for girls. There's a brother program, Boys to Men, for boys.

She firmly believes that, "No matter where you come from, no matter what your background is or has been, you can overcome and you can excel and propel if you have certain skills."

The programs run from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Saturday for 28 weeks at Universal Institute Charter School. When I asked her about all those early mornings spent watching little girls balance books on their heads and schooling boys in matters like theater etiquette, Gamble said, "What else would I be doing on a Saturday? Shopping?"

Gamble did a round of media interviews last week to raise awareness about a $150-a-ticket fashion show fund-raiser Wednesday at the University of the Arts to benefit her social etiquette and character-building programs. I took the rare opportunity of having a sit-down with her to try to find out a little about the wife of the musical legend.

A lifelong Philadelphian, Gamble grew up in the former Richard Allen housing projects, where she dreamed up being a professional ballerina. Her mother was a homemaker and her father a welder. Her parents divorced while she was still a kid and money was always tight, which meant no money for ballet lessons.

Her mother died of leukemia when Faatimah was just 16. Six years later, her dad was dead of a heart attack. At the time, Gamble, a 1963 graduate of Bok Technical High School, was modeling for department stores such as Gimbels, Wanamaker's and Strawbridge & Clothier, studying dance and also dabbling in acting.

Aside from etiquette, she has long promoted wellness as a community cause in Philadelphia. (She was behind the health-oriented Salaam Restaurant, which operated at 15th and Christian streets for five years during the '90s and has also established a community garden on the block.) She told me she got on the wellness kick after her parents' untimely deaths. In the 1960s, long before running was fashionable, she would jog in street clothes. In the late 1970s, she was a macrobiotic vegetarian.

She met her future husband in 1981 when they both served on a committee to raise money for a sickle cell anemia program at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. They were at a reception and his opening line was from a hit song by the Intruders called, "I Wanna Know Your Name."

"I wanna know your name

Ooh, you look so good.

I wanna know your name.

What's your name, baby . . . ."

At the time, she didn't really know much about the Philadelphia sound, Kenny Gamble's music legacy. "Basically, I was into jazz. I wasn't as much into R&B at that stage in my life," she recalled. "I did hear the music but I didn't connect the dots."

Their love bloomed slowly, as Faatimah Gamble recalled. "We talked about everything. Our interests were similar and that was going back to the neighborhood and in helping the community and building the community.

"We talked about the condition that our people were in. We had a mutual love for Mahatma Gandhi. And we talked endlessly about the work that Mahatma Gandhi did and Malcolm X, and Marcus Garvey and Elijah Muhammad. The conversation was always stimulating and that's what I enjoyed about him, not to mention his quiet demeanor."

She and her husband-to-be were both exploring Islam. "We both grew together in the faith," she said. They decided to marry in 1990. "I asked him when did he want to do it. He said, 'In two weeks.'

"We actually got married in two weeks. The dress was made by some friends of ours. The reception was coordinated by some friends," she said. The wedding was held at the Philadelphia Masjid, with a reception at the Franklin Plaza. "We had 500 people."

Afterward, Gamble tried to content herself in the couple's 11,000-square-foot home in Gladwyne, but was restless. In 1991, the couple decided to move back to the city and dedicate themselves to improving things in Kenny Gamble's old neighborhood around 14th and Catharine streets. "We talked about it for years and one day we finally said, 'This is it. This is the time. Let's stop talking about it and let's make it happen.' "

Together they acquired 160 pieces of property to start the community development program known as Universal Community Homes. Faatimah, who had studied real estate at Temple University and worked as an agent, was often in the lead.

Since I had her attention for only a few more minutes, I asked her about being half of one of the city's important power couples.

"It is an easy partnership," she said. "I've been often asked, 'How is it that you are able to stay together for 22 years?' The only response that I can give is that we have mutual interests.

"We work very closely together. We believe in the same thing. We pray together. . . . We come together for a common goal, and that is our people and being sure our kids are educated."

Universal runs six charter schools in Philadelphia. Her Pearls of Wisdom and Boys to Men finishing schools are a grace note to that endeavor. "We want our kids to have the benefits to compete in this society so that they are not left back," she explained. At graduation, girls get a string of real pearls. Boys get a wallet.

"Too often our people have been disenfranchised and we must change the whole dynamic of what has occurred over the years," Gamble continued. "We talk about our people being the legacy of slavery. But we don't even want to talk about that any more. That was, but we're interested now in what is and what is going to be."