Penn Elementary was the first site beyond the Spurgeon Jake Winters Free Peoples Medical Center (across the street) that the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party did sickle cell testing and other preventative health screenings such as: high blood pressure and diabetes. Penn Elementary school is still open today and their school mascot is a Black Panther.
The Black Panther Party created one of the first sickle cell anemia advocacy and testing sites at Penn Elementary Academy in the North Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side of Chicago in 1970. Sickle Cell Anemia testing became mandatory in all 50 states in 1972 when the SCAC Act was created.
