Pottstown's 74 Veteran Banners Are All White, Councilman Demands Fix

Every one of the 74 banners honoring local veterans along High Street in downtown Pottstown depicts a white service member, and that's become a problem for a borough where roughly one in four residents is Black. Retired U.S. Army Col. Joseph Brown, a Pottstown native, first raised the alarm about the all-white display, and now a borough councilmember says it's time for the council to actually do something about it.

Brown's concern isn't abstract. According to CBS News, Brown has deep family roots in the borough, including a father who served in the Air Force during the Korean and Vietnam wars, three uncles who served in World War II, and an uncle by marriage who served as Pottstown's first Black police chief. Brown said that as things stand, Pottstown would have no minorities represented during the nation's 250th birthday celebration, a milestone that falls squarely within 2026's nationwide America250 observances tied to major historic events across Montgomery County, according to Valley Forge Tourism.

Pottstown NAACP President Johnny Corson made the concern formal in May, calling on the Borough Council to add minority veterans to the display and arguing that an all-white banner presentation failed to reflect the borough's diverse population, per the same CBS report. Census figures show Pottstown Borough has around 23,400 residents, with Black or African American residents making up roughly 22.6% to 23.1% of that population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Who Actually Runs the Program

The banners, part of what's known as the Heroes of Pottstown program, are owned by Elks Lodge 814, according to a contact cited in the CBS report — not by the borough itself, even though they hang from municipal light poles on both sides of High Street in downtown Pottstown. Pottstown Borough provides the property and oversight for the program, but the private fraternal organization, instituted in 1903 and reporting 744 active members in 2026 per Elks.org, handles day-to-day administration.

That administrative split has become part of the friction. Pottstown Borough Manager Justin Keller said the borough and Elks Lodge 814 are working through program issues together, and that the borough is identifying areas where the program can be strengthened. Keller also said additional guidance will be provided when appropriate, and that new community recognition programs often require adjustments after their initial rollout, framing the current dispute as something that comes with the program being in its first cycle.

Part of the bottleneck is simple geography. The agreement between the borough and Elks Lodge 814 limits the original 74 hero banners to public property along High Street between Keim Street and Manatawny Street, according to CBS News — meaning once those pole spaces filled up, there was nowhere left downtown to add more without expanding the footprint.

A Program Built on a First-Come, First-Served Model

Families seeking to honor a veteran must pay a $200 fee and submit proof of honorable military service, such as a DD Form 214, to the Elks Lodge 814 Veterans Committee at 61 High Street, according to a Facebook post from August. That pay-to-honor structure isn't unique to Pottstown. The Hometown Heroes banner concept originated in Harrisburg in 2006 and has since spread to municipalities across Pennsylvania, where local governments or nonprofits typically charge between $135 and $250 per banner on a first-come, first-served basis, according to the Hometown Heroes Banner Program.

That first-come structure is exactly what critics say allowed the display to fill up through private club channels before any broader outreach reached all corners of the borough. Pottstown Borough Councilmember Andrew Monastra has proposed swapping some of the borough's I Pick Pottstown marketing banners for additional hero banners as one fix, and has called for a solution that would allow quick installation of banners featuring veterans of color. Other proposals floated publicly, per a Facebook post from a local news outlet, include expanding banner holders to Wilson Street, which already has roughly 10 banner poles, and conducting ward-level surveys to identify eligible veterans the program has missed.

Pressure Builds Ahead of a Possible Vote

Monastra said delaying action would disrespect people and their service, and he hopes to put the issue on the agenda and bring it to a vote next month. That timeline matters because, despite the council saying in May that it was taking steps to strengthen the banner program and would press Elks Lodge 814 to make improvements, the council has not yet made the promised changes, according to CBS News reporter Liz Crawford.

Part of the underlying problem, per the CBS report, is that the banner program's contract includes no guidelines for determining which veterans get displayed in the first place — leaving decisions largely to whoever applies first and pays the fee. A local Elks president acknowledged the program is still a work in progress, language that echoes Keller's own characterization of a first-cycle rollout still finding its footing. For Brown and Corson, though, the clock tied to 2026's national anniversary observances leaves little patience for further delay.