The late Stuart Feldman, a 1954 Cheltenham High School graduate, was a University of Pennsylvania Law School graduate, Washington lobbyist, Philadelphia lawyer, and social activist who worked in the administrations of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon. 

According to local historian Chuck Langerman, Feldman fought for Vietnam veterans, leading the charge to secure billions of dollars for veterans’ benefits and programs. He co-founded in 1978 what became Vietnam Veterans of America.

A 1977 article in Fortune magazine stated he “single-handedly… won billions of dollars for veterans programs”.

“For Stuart Feldman, the people who really scorned Vietnam veterans were not the occasional anti-war protesters, but members of Congress who sent them to war and then willfully looked away when they came home in desperate need of health care and education,” Washington Post columnist Colman McCarthy said. “His advocacy was of the rarest kind in Washington: relentless, informed and humane. If there were a medal of honor for valor in defending the rights of veterans, Stu Feldman would surely have earned one.”

He was also primarily responsible for the establishment of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia in 2003. The museum, which is located a few blocks from the Liberty Bell and Independence Mall, helps educate visitors about the U.S. Constitution.  

Feldman advocated for a monument dedicated to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington, which he envisioned would be engraved with the text of Dr. King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech. In 2011, his dream for a memorial to Dr. King became reality a year after he passed away.  

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