Tag Archives: Black History

NJSEA Celebrates Black History Month: Underground Railroad

We are honoring Black History Month with a weekly post each Monday throughout February on people and places related to the Meadowlands. The posts are taken from our archives and were originally done by former staffer Jim Wright.

Mapnj

      Runaway slaves from the South took were several routes through New Jersey before and during the Civil War, but those escape routes all had one thing in common: They converged at Jersey City.

  By one estimate, as many as 70,000 runaway slaves escaped through Jersey City.

    If you click on the map on the right (from the state of New Jersey’s Web site), you can see the major New Jersey stops on the Underground Railroad.

   More on Jersey City’s role in the Underground Railroad here.


Meadowlands Nature Blog Celebrates Black History Month

     We are honoring Black History Month with a weekly post each Monday throughout February on people and places related to the Meadowlands. The posts are taken from our archives and were originally done by former staffer Jim Wright.

Today the focus is Tuskegee Airman Calvin Spann, who grew up in Rutherford. Mr. Spann died this past September.

In future weeks we’ll  look at the Underground Railroad in Jersey City, a slave cemetery in Little Ferry, and a famous black actress and civil rights activist who worked in Kearny.

   Calvin J. Spann, who grew up in Rutherford,  served with the famed Tuskegee Airmen during World War II. Spann
From 1943 to 1946, 1st Lt. Spann served in the US Army Air Force, 332nd Fighter Group, 100th Squadron, as part of the famed Tuskegee Airmen — the first-ever group of black Army pilots. 
Spann was among an elite group of Tuskegee Airmen who escorted B-17 bombers and reconnaissance  planes over Nazi Germany during World War. Spann flew 26 combat missions.

   In a phone interview yesterday from his home in Texas, Spann said: “My growing up in Rutherford inspired me to be a Tuskegee Airman. Planes from Teterboro Airport took off right over my house.

   “I was able to do everything any young man in high school did, and when I got into the Air Corps and they said they didn’t think I could learn to fly, I thought that was preposterous. I’d been doing everything everyone else was doing all my life, and it really stuck with me. That was my experience growing up in Rutherford.”

    Click here for more with Tuskegee Airman Calvin Spann.

Continue reading →

BLACK HISTORY MONTH 021809: Gethsemane Cemetery

     Gethsemane Little Ferry b     The Meadowlands Commission is honoring Black History Month with a weekly post on this blog. Today the topic is Gethsemane Cemetery in Little Ferry.

   Gethsemane Cemetery is located on an acre on a sandy hill just off Route 46 and Liberty Street.  The photo above is a view of the cemetery's entrance on Summit Place.

  Gethsemane Little Ferry a It was set aside in 1860 as a burial ground for African-American residents of nearby Hackensack. The last burial took place in 1924.

    The site was entered onto the National Register of Historic Places in 1994 "because of the significant role it played in the enactment of New Jersey’s early civil rights legislation, as well as containing evidence of West African burial customs," according to the Bergen County  Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs.

    The county has been doing a major restoration of the cemetery, and it is currently closed to the public. Self-guided tours will be available when the work is completed.

    According to the agency, "Fewer than 50 gravestones remain, but the burials of more than  500 people have been documented. Gethsemane Little Ferry d

    "They include Elizabeth Sutliff Dulfer who was born a slave  in  the late 1700s, freed in 1822, and died in 1880. She was one of the area's wealthiest businesswomen and landholders. [Dulfer owned clay beds that supplied clay to potteries from Philadelphia to Boston. Her clay company along the Hackensack River was said to be the second-largest in the nation.]

   "Two Civil War veterans, Peter Billings and Silas M. Carpenter, were also buried here."

     More on the cemetery here.

    Click "Continue reading …" to learn more about the cemetery's role in early civil-rights legislation.

Continue reading →

BLACK HISTORY WEDNESDAY: Underground Railroad

  The Meadowlands Commission is honoring Black History Month with a weekly post on this blog. Today the focus is on the Underground Railroad in Jersey City.  Mapnj

      Runaway slaves from the South took were several routes through New Jersey before and during the Civil War, but those escape routes all had one thing in common: They converged at Jersey City.

  By one estimate, as many as 70,000 runaway slaves escaped through Jersey City.

    If you click on the map on the right (from the state of New Jersey's Web site), you can see the major New Jersey stops on the Underground Railroad.

   More on Jersey City's role in the Underground Railroad here.

    More about New Jersey's role here.

   For a glimpse of slavery in late 18th Century Bergen County, click here.

   And in honor of Abraham Lincoln's birthday tomorrow, here is a link to information on the Emancipation Proclamation.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH 020409: Local Tuskegee Airman

     The Meadowlands Commission is honoring Black History Month with a weekly post on this blog. Today the focus is a Tuskegee Airman from Rutherford.

    In future weeks we'll  look at the Underground Railroad in Jersey City, a slave cemetery in Little Ferry, and a famous black actress and civil rights activist who worked in Kearny.

   Calvin J. Spann, who grew up in Rutherford,  served with the famed Tuskegee Airmen during World War II. Spann
    From 1943 to 1946, 1st Lt. Spann served in the US Army Air Force, 332nd Fighter Group, 100th Squadron, as part of the famed Tuskegee Airmen — the first-ever group of black Army pilots. 
    Spann was among an elite group of Tuskegee Airmen who escorted B-17 bombers and reconnaissance  planes over Nazi Germany during World War. Spann flew 26 combat missions.

   In a phone interview yesterday from his home in Texas, Spann said: "My growing up in Rutherford inspired me to be a Tuskegee Airman. Planes from Teterboro Airport took off right over my house.

   "I was able to do everything any young man in high school did, and when I got into the Air Corps and they said they didn't think I could learn to fly, I thought that was preposterous. I'd been doing everything everyone else was doing all my life, and it really stuck with me. That was my experience growing up in Rutherford."

    Click here for more with Tuskegee Airman Calvin Spann.

Continue reading →