B e y o n d t h e W a l l
englewood's [her]story
Located in the City’s Fourth Ward and on busy Palisade Avenue, the Black Women’s Mural reflects Englewood’s history, present, and future. It provides an opportunity to celebrate Black women’s stories within the larger context of the City’s history of activism, change, and movement.
Englewood, a city in Bergen County, NJ was incorporated by state legislature in 1899. With the city’s proximity to neighboring New York City, African Americans largely began moving to Englewood and other parts of the North during the Great Migration of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By 1930, Englewood’s African American population was close to 3,000.
Though Englewood could now be considered more of a melting pot, the City has historically been divided by race and class, like many other places in America. The City has four distinct voting wards. The First and Second Wards on the “East Hill” are predominantly white and considered more affluent neighborhoods with higher property values. The Third Ward is a predominantly lower and middle-class area with a mix of African American, Hispanic/Latino, and white residents. Finally, the Fourth Ward, the dozen or so blocks south of Palisade Avenue, is almost exclusively African American and the most socially cohesive.
“Airplane View of Palisade Avenue, Taken in 1914 (1914),” Vintage Bergen County, accessed September 23, 2024, visit page.
Englewood has its own history of civil unrest. As the African American population increased, so did white anxiety and antagonism. Between the 1930s and 1970s, racial tensions played out between Englewood’s largely segregated wards. One such instance included the “Negro Purge” that took place in the 1930s. Dr. David Colman, Associate Professor of African American History at Ramapo College, detailed this history in an article he wrote, titled “Englewood’s history casts a long shadow over a controversial affordable housing plan.” According to Colman, wealthier East Hill residents, who drove the demand for Black domestic workers in the prior years, wanted to send them back south when the Great Depression was in full swing and they could no longer afford household laborers. The effort to “depopulate” the City of its vibrant Black community was unsuccessful. Racial tensions continued to rise and bubble during the twentieth century.
“Mary McCleod Bethune Controversy (1952),” Englewood Makes History, accessed August 31, 2024, visit page.
In April 1952, Englewood made national news for barring Mary McLeod Bethune from speaking at a local school. She was accused of being affiliated with Communists by a school board member and subsequently banned from giving her speech that had already sold hundreds of tickets. Former First Lady and close friend of Mrs. Bethune, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote of her surprise and disapproval of this act.Members of the National Council of Negro Women, an organization that McLeod Bethune founded, protested and wrote letters to Englewood’s then-mayor, M. Leslie Denning. Shortly after, Mrs. McLeod Bethune was re-invited and eventually did accept an offer to speak in Englewood on June 16 of that same year.
Englewood has a rich Civil Rights history, as it has been the setting for several protests and some civil unrest. The tensions focused on issues of housing, schooling, and voting. In February of 1962, residents pushed back again when eleven protesters were arrested for staging a sit-in to desegregate Englewood. According to Matthew McGrath from northjersey.com, “In 1962, United Press International reported on a walkout of about half of the
Lincoln School student body — of the 535 students in the school, 250 attended class, of which just 15 were white. The walkout had been organized by parents in the Englewood Movement, a grassroots organization of parents founded to lobby against segregation.” Black women were critical to this demonstration, and the four women pictured marching for school integration on the Black Women’s Mural is evidence of that.
Black Englewood residents continue to maintain their community’s identity, contribute to their city’s political landscape, and uphold their long history of artistic and political expression. Several Englewood natives are preserving their community’s history through non-profit organizations, such as Encounters in Black Traditions, and projects, such as Englewood Makes History, the Englewood Story Share Project, and Gazette which has maintained the memories of the City’s 1967 race riots. Like art, activism is a form of cultural, political, and social expression and Englewood has its own distinct history with both.
“Lincoln School, Englewood (1962),” Glen Worthman, Vintage Bergen County, accessed September 23, 2024, visit page.
the women in the mural
Several generations of Black women activists are featured in the mural. Ida B. Wells, a journalist and NAACP founder from Memphis, TN is one such representation of nineteenth-century women’s suffrage activism. Wells, a national icon, represents the Black suffragists’ legacy that has been passed down to Black women today. Also pictured are four women marching at an Englewood school desegregation protest in the 1960s. Finally, there are women featured in the mural who represent the movement for Black Lives, during which this mural was being planned, and an intergenerational relationship between a mother and daughter. Collectively, they represent the past, present, and future of Black women’s activism and contributions to history.
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Hear From Women in the Mural
and Community Advocates
On June 8, 2024, NNJCF arranged oral history interviews with the living women in the mural and community partners. In the interviews, Kia Miller, Toni Thornton Miller, Hali Cooper, Charles Cobb, former City of Englewood Councilman and Lil Corcoran, Executive Director of the Women’s Rights Information Center, describe their experiences as members of the Englewood community who participated in the Black Women’s Mural’s creation process.
Miller, Thornton Miller, and Cooper also describe their connections to Englewood, their experiences with being painted on the mural, and the learnings they want mural visitors to leave with after visiting the mural. Cobb and Corcoran share some of Englewood’s history, talk in detail about being community advocates for the mural, and discuss the impact the mural has had on Englewood’s community.
behind the scenes
Photos courtesy of Samuel Lee
