Hundreds of mourners honor 'trailblazer' Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver at memorial

TRENTON — Lawmakers and community members gathered Thursday morning for the start of a three-day celebration of the life of Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver at the Statehouse.

Oliver died unexpectedly on Aug. 1 after a brief hospital stay. She was 71. But the circumstances of her death were not front of mind for those in attendance. Instead, they paid tribute to a “trailblazer.”

Hundreds of mourners lined halls throughout the Statehouse as a steady stream of mourners made their way to the rotunda, where a flag-draped coffin was on display next to the state seal.

As the first groups of people made their way through to pay their respects, the extended Oliver family, as well as Gov. Phil Murphy and first lady Tammy Murphy, looked on. Flowers and a picture of the most senior Black legislative figure in state history filled the room.

“It is a loss of a voice of a person who stood in the gap for us as Black folks, marginalized community, women,” said Assemblywoman Shavonda Sumter, chair of the Legislative Black Caucus. “It’s a show and tell of Black electeds who were touched by the lieutenant governor. We’re showing up to pay our respect and love to the family, which is what we do as a community.”

Sumter noted that Oliver’s legacy will be that doors are open “for all of us to understand the assignment to keep being the voice for those who don’t have a voice” and to keep fighting for access, equity, systemic change and social justice.

The governor did not provide any remarks before opening the doors but did participate in a prayer.

Murphy flew back from Italy on Wednesday night for the weekend’s events. He had initially been scheduled for a two-week holiday. He left July 28 but came back last Thursday to pay his respects to the Oliver family. He left again on Friday and returned Wednesday night.

Oliver was initially serving as acting governor when Murphy left. That title passed to state Senate President Nick Scutari when Oliver was taken to Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston for treatment of an undisclosed medical condition.

The Oliver family said in a statement shortly after Oliver’s death that she "was not only a distinguished public servant but also our cherished daughter, sister, aunt, friend, and hero.”

Oliver was the first Black woman to be speaker of the General Assembly in New Jersey and the second in the nation’s history to lead a house of a state legislature, with Karen Bass of California being the first. Oliver was also the second Black person to serve as New Jersey's Assembly speaker, following S. Howard Woodson, in the 1970s. Marion West Higgins, a Bergen County Republican, was the first woman to hold that role, in 1965.

Throughout her tenure, Oliver stepped up to serve as acting governor when Murphy was out of state or otherwise unavailable. Those responsibilities took on a new meaning in March 2020. With Murphy receiving treatment for cancer, Oliver provided a steadfast poise for residents to follow as the first cases of COVID-19 were diagnosed.

"As someone who was born and raised in Newark, and who has called East Orange home for more than 40 years, Sheila did not view these issues in the abstract because she lived with them every day of her life. She brought a unique and invaluable perspective to our public policy discourse and served as an inspiration to millions of women and girls everywhere, especially young women of color,” Murphy said in a statement last week. "Beyond all of that, she was an incredibly genuine and kind person whose friendship and partnership will be irreplaceable."

Oliver graduated from Newark's Weequahic High School in 1970 and went on to receive a bachelor's degree from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, a historically Black university. She was in the third class of women at Lincoln, after it became a coeducational institution.

She later earned a master’s degree in planning and administration from Columbia University, and, by the late 1970s, her family moved back to East Orange, where Oliver began her career in politics and established her base for the next four decades.

Oliver moved up the political ladder, serving as a member of the East Orange Board of Education from 1994 to 2000 and landing on the Essex County Board of Chosen Freeholders (now Board of County Commissioners). She lost a bid to win a second term in the 1999 Democratic primary.

In what would be part of a career priority, Oliver had ambitions to be a first in a succession of positions, and she maintained that focus in the face of defeat. In 1997, she ran for East Orange mayor and lost the Democratic primary by 52 votes to Robert Bowser.

Oliver was first elected to the Assembly in 2003, and in 2010 she became the state's 169th speaker, succeeding Camden County's Joe Roberts. Her rise to the top post was fueled, in part, by a deal to ensure stronger North Jersey representation. And it was backed by Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo Jr., whom Oliver also served as an assistant county administrator.

She continued to serve in the Assembly before Murphy tapped her as his running mate for lieutenant governor in 2017.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Sheila Oliver memorial brings hundreds of mourners to Trenton