Six sites in North Jersey will receive initial markers for the NJ Black Heritage Trail

Sometime between the end of this year and early next, New Jersey residents will see markers placed in front of historic sites statewide like Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson.

The markers are part of the New Jersey Black Heritage Trail that recognizes overlooked sites key to Black history in the Garden State. In September 2022, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill that called for the New Jersey Historical Commission to establish a Black Heritage Trail.

Thirty-two sites were slated to receive markers for the trail across 15 counties. Six are located across Bergen, Essex, Morris, and Passaic counties.

Along with Hinchliffe Stadium, other sites include:

• Crane House in Montclair to recognize the Montclair Young Women's Christian Association

• McCloud Elementary School in Englewood to mark the Cleveland School Sit-Ins

• The site of the Madison Barber Shop Protests in Madison

• Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Passaic to remember the late James H. Penn

• The East Orange Freedom Schools that existed in 1905 and 1906.

Noelle Williams, director of the New Jersey Historical Commission’s African American History Program, said in an interview that there were 64 submissions for markers, which will be 7 feet tall and 36 inches wide and made of cast iron. Williams then commented on the trail coming to fruition, saying “People may suspect that there’s some history, but they may not know what that history is.”

Sara Cureton, director of the New Jersey Historical Commission, said, "Part of what continuously surprises me is in this day where we are living so much online and so much digital information, there is still tremendous interest in historical markers."

Williams said there's another round for submissions for markers with a deadline on Monday to send in a letter of intent. More information on the submission process can be found at https://nj.gov/state/historical/his-black-heritage-trail.shtml.

Montclair Young Women's Christian Association

In 1920, a group of African American women in Montclair purchased the historic Crane House, then located on Glenridge Avenue, as a new headquarters for the YWCA of Montclair-North Essex. For the next 45 years, it was a home for African American women, who were looking for work in the area, as well as their social center.

After the Crane House was no longer the home of the Montclair YWCA, it was sold to preservationists in 1965. Then, the entire building was moved to its current location on Orange Road, where it now serves as the home of the Montclair History Center.

Montclair History Center executive director Angelica Diggs said the marker would be placed at the building. She said she and her colleagues at the center are thrilled about it.

"The story of the YWCA is a really integral part of Montclair's Black history," Diggs said. "So, we're excited to be able to acknowledge that history and mark it with a historical marker at our site and to make that history more known in the community."

Cleveland School Sit-Ins

In the 1960s, there was a series of sit-ins by Black students at what was then the Cleveland School on Tenafly Road in Englewood to protest the segregation policies of the school district, as Black children were only allowed to attend certain schools.

The school was renamed the Dr. Leroy McCloud Elementary School in 2009 after the district's first Black principal.

David Colman, an associate professor of African American history at Ramapo College who grew up in Englewood and attended the Cleveland School as a child, put in the application for the marker. He was elated about the marker because the students attending the school in the present day, like two of his four kids, will get to know more of the school's history.

"The only reason there are Black and Latino kids of different backgrounds that go into that school is because kids their age actually sat in and protested to force the city to end segregation," Colman said. "I think that's an empowering message for young students."

Hinchliffe Stadium

Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson being part of the Black Heritage Trail is warranted when considering its history.

It was once the home field for the New York Black Yankees from 1933 to 1938. The stadium in Paterson is one of four still standing in the United States that hosted Negro League baseball teams.

Baseball Hall of Famer Larry Doby, the first Black player to play in the American League, grew up in Paterson playing football and baseball in Hinchliffe Stadium for Paterson's Eastside High School.

The stadium, which opened in 1932 and then closed in 1996 after a lack of maintenance over the years, reopened last year following a renovation effort.

The Madison Barber Shop Protests

The year was 1964. Thomas Peyton Sellers and Reginald Barrow, residents of the borough of Madison, had gone to the barbershop operated by Philip Gatti on Main Street to get a haircut within two weeks of each other. Both were Black and both were refused service.

That refusal set off protests in the spring and summer of that year in front of several barbershops in Madison by Drew University students and other members of the community over claims of racial discrimination, according to articles in local papers at that time. The owners countered that their barbers did not know how to cut the hair of Black people.

Sellers and Barrow would file complaints against Gatti with the state. In February 1966, the Supreme Court found that Gatti refused to cut their hair because they were Black.

James H. Penn: A Life of Triumph

James H. Penn died in August 1977 at the age of 96. During much of those 96 years, the longtime Passaic resident was the only African American lawyer in the city. He was also the oldest practicing lawyer in Passaic County upon his retirement in 1975 after more than 60 years.

One of his accomplishments during his years in the legal profession was getting a bill passed in the New Jersey Legislature in 1917 that allowed Blacks to use public accommodations such as restaurants and hotels, as reported in his 1977 obituary in the Herald News.

Penn also oversaw over many years the Sunday school at the Mt. Zion Baptist Church on Main Avenue in Passaic, where the marker honoring him would be placed.

Site of East Orange Freedom Schools, 1905-1906

Between 1905 and 1906, Black residents in East Orange boycotted the local schools over the issue of school segregation.

An article about the protest written in the Spring 1967 edition of the History of Education Quarterly notes that "the colored citizens staged a boycott and established a counterpart of today's 'freedom schools,' rather than permit them to attend separate classes."

Freedom Schools were schools set up for temporary and free education for African Americans shut out of the local school system that gained prominence in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement.

Ricardo Kaulessar covers race, immigration, and culture for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: kaulessar@northjersey.com

Twitter: @ricardokaul

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ Black Heritage Trail: 6 sites in North Jersey to get markers