Robert Best, an attender of Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting can be found in Center City Philadelphia, near the plaza across from the Clothespin sculpture every Wednesday between 12:00 and 1:30. Robert stands there with a tall pole and a set of signs.
“I do Wednesday at lunchtime from noon to 1:30,” Robert said. “In the summertime, I go a little longer, but in the freezing cold, I commit to the hour and a half.”
“I think I have over 40 to 50 signs now, depending on whatever the issue was.” Robert’s advocacy is connected to the messages he shares. “I put the message out. If it connects with someone, fine. If it doesn’t, fine too.”
The signs, that he designs, are durable, easy to hold, and visible in traffic. “My signs go, they take a beating,” he said. “It’s the polyethylene board, which is basically plastic cardboard. It’s all weather. It’s corrugated.”
“I hand cut from adhesive vinyl and I have sets of stencils and letters and t-square,” he said referring to the lettering on his signs. “I just apply it down.”
Each sign is mounted on a tall pole that carries multiple messages. “I have a pole about eight feet tall,” he said. “I have a sign at the top, a sign at the bottom.” He explained, “that’s a lot of real estate for that time, and you can get four cogent messages out.” He continued, “your sign has to be so tight and focused that if people glance at you for three seconds, it has to be short and simple.”
One sign reads, “History deleted, is history repeated” another reads, “you can’t hide the truth.”
Robert also avoids arguments with people passing by, he shares some advice. “If someone says something and they push your button and you respond… you’ve stepped on your message.” Instead, he said, “I would say, you know, ‘that’s a good point to express you got there. That’s something to think about.’”
Robert described a moment during a roadside sign gathering on Welsh Road in Upper Dublin Township in fall of 2025. One person in the group held a sign with profanity, and when someone driving past yelled at them, the person with the sign yelled back. After the driver left, the person returned to the group and said, “I can’t believe that happened,” and Robert said he replied, “Yes, I can. You have a sign that is provocative.”
Robert continued to talk about the altercation. “I said to them, ‘you,’re making very it unsafe for me’,” he added. “And I meant me in particular, because I’m black. ‘The driver gonna see me, okay? He might not see you.’” He recalled what the person said back. “They said, ‘no, I’m not,’” Robert said. “’If I think it’s unsafe for me, then that’s where, the assessment stops.’”
Robert continued on about his advocacy and his sign making, “I’m compelled, especially at this part of the arc of my life, not to be silent. So, if it does not affect change in a big or small way, though I think it has in small ways.”
Robert continued, “there have been a couple of times when people have said, ‘You know, good work, my brother.’ I say, you could do this too. Find yourself a corner and take an hour and a half, or whatever free time you have, and put whatever you want that voices your concern. It will satisfy your soul.”
Robert also shared, “once you get your voice out, even when someone says, harmful things at you , you don’t feel awful. You really don’t. You have to go ahead and wash that over, but you feel like you got a feeling out there, and you’re not sitting at the water cooler anymore.
For Robert, the weekly presence itself is the work. “I don’t know the answer” to what change will look like, he said. “But what I do know the answer to is that I’m compelled… not to be silent.”
Signs Made by Robert Best
