In the Fall 2021 semester, my oral history classmates and I independently conducted oral history interviews as the capstone project of our semester-long Monmouth University oral history course with Professor Melissa Ziobro. Most of us would be interviewing people for the first time. This was an exciting end of semester project to look forward to since many of us students would be putting our first marks in the world of history.
Before our interviews came around, we needed to learn the basics of oral history as well as what’s important in order to put a successful and meaningful oral history out into the world. We also learned what materials were important when conducting an interview, as well as the different ways an interview can be done. For example, some interviews are done for documentaries with large camera crews, other interviews are done with audio only. Every situation is unique. Creating meaningful oral histories is not as simple as hitting record. It is important to show up to the interview prepared – with working cameras or recorders, as well as the required paperwork, and good questions. Over the course of this class, my classmates and I were given a breakdown of the steps necessary to prepare and execute an interview from start to finish.
Our first major task, outside of our readings and class discussion, was to create a time log and a summary for an interview that already existed. This helped us to understand interviewing techniques, and the work that goes into processing an interview. These interviews we were processing had been conducted by the National Guard Militia Museum of NJ, and our work would live there and at the Library of Congress Veterans History Project. We each received our own oral history to work with.
We were eventually trusted to do our own interviews – some for the Monmouth Memories oral history program, some for the Monmouth County, 9/11, and Its Aftermath oral history program, and some for Paradoxical Paradise: Asbury Park.
In this new day and age, some interviews are done over Zoom. My interview for the Paradoxical Paradise project was done over Zoom for the convenience of the interviewee, which is always important to consider. I interviewed Angela Ahbez-Anderson, a local politician and a woman who is very involved in her community of Asbury Park. Angela is focused on helping the youth of Asbury. She runs beauty pageants, poem contests, as well as helping young kids improve their grammar. Angela also runs a program that helps women find jobs as well as finding resources to secure a comfortable life for themselves and their children.
Oral history made it possible for me to get Angela’s story and impact on her neighborhood out into the world. It’s an important tool for academics as well as the general public in finding information in almost any topic, as well as, at a more personal level, a way to ensure one’s own legacy is preserved for their family for generations to come.
This Spring 2022, the pop up exhibit “Asbury Park: 150 Years of Change and Transformation — A Segregated Seashore” was installed at the Monmouth University Guggenheim Memorial Library, and a new pop up exhibit, “One Voice Is Not Enough: Asbury Park’s Musical Diversity Since 1871” was installed at the historic Berkeley-Carteret Hotel in Asbury Park. Paradoxical Paradise team member Professor Melissa Ziobro volunteered as an advisor on both of these exhibits by the Asbury Park Museum, which were funded, in part, by Monmouth University Diversity Innovation Grants.
You might recall from an earlier blog post that “Asbury Park: 150 Years of Change and Transformation — A Segregated Seashore” was previously at the Berkeley-Carteret and focuses on the history of the east side of Asbury Park, to include a discussion of segregation there. As noted above, Ziobro volunteered her time to serve as an advisor on this exhibit, with Kay Harris and her team at the Asbury Park Museum in the lead and Stan Cain providing professional design support. There was a soft opening over Memorial Day weekend 2021 and a formal opening ceremony held July 8, 2021, at which point display cases, mannequins in historic dress, and an audio-visual component joined the panels of the exhibition. Dignitaries in attendance at the opening included Congressman Frank Pallone, NJ Assembly Members Eric Houghtaling & Joann Downey, Sylvia Sylvia of the Asbury Park Chamber of Commerce, and more. As planned, this exhibit moved to Monmouth University in December 2021, and remained on campus through the Spring 2022 semester.
The new exhibit “One Voice Is Not Enough: Asbury Park’s Musical Diversity Since 1871” was curated by Charlie and Pam Horner of the Asbury Park Museum, with Cain again designing and Ziobro again advising. It opened at the Berkeley-Carteret Hotel on December 18, 2021, and is expected to be there through sometime this summer. The banners are once again in beautiful, engaging, full color, with easily accessible text. The exhibit tells the story of “the first 100 years of Asbury Park music – a story told through stand-up banners, wall-mounted posters, a music soundtrack with 4 hours’ worth of selected recordings, two continuously running 35-minute informative slide … and two display cases full of Asbury Park artifacts. The exhibit covers spirituals, gospel, brass bands, marching bands, concert bands, ragtime, stride piano, jazz, blues, pop, rhythm & blues, rock & roll, doo wop, soul, and rock music from the early 1870s to the early 1970s. On display are items like Bobby Thomas’s personal 78 RPM copy of ‘Doll Face’ on the original After Hours label, plus … handwritten lyrics from the flip side; Stormin’ Norman Seldin’s classic hat; an 1898 wax cylinder by baritone J. W. Myers; an Arthur Pryor 78; sheet music by Billy Terrell & Ray Dahrouge, and Lenny Welch; a red vinyl 45 by Nicky Addeo & the Darchaes; an album and program from the Missionary Jubilaires; a Southside Johnny autographed harmonica; a framed autograph and print of Fats Waller; and much more.”
This exhibit will also eventually move to Monmouth University.
As ever, the Paradoxical Paradise team wants to ensure that the University isn’t impeding or duplicating work being done by the community themselves. Maintaining close ties with community groups, and sharing our time, expertise, and, importantly, resources, is one way that we hope to demonstrate this.
The all-volunteer Asbury Park Museum builds on the success of the Asbury Park Historical Society and is in the process of acquiring a permanent home in downtown Asbury Park. See more here.
The Berkeley-Carteret Hotel, now styled the Berkeley Oceanfront Hotel, has been a fixture in Asbury Park for close to 100 years. It currently offers 257 rooms, and is just steps from the Asbury Park boardwalk. The potential reach of the exhibit is great, with thousands likely to see it during its time at the Hotel alone. See more about the Hotel here.
Melissa Ziobro is Specialist Professor of Public History in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University.
University Librarian Kurt Wagner, Asbury Park Museum President Kay Harris, Exhibit Designer Stan Cain, and Professor Ziobro upon installing Segregated Seashore at the Guggenheim Memorial Library in December 2021.
In November of 1910, Thomas Williams, who acquired the nickname “Black Diamond” during his boxing years, was accused and subsequently arrested on suspicion for the murder of a 10-year-old white child named Marie Smith. This story was heavily covered in local and national papers as a “negro crime” including in the New York Times. While evidence against Williams was circumstantial and other suspects were also questioned, Williams remained the main focus of some townspeople, many in the surrounding towns, and especially, reporters.
Asbury Park had been through several public debates on racial segregation and integration in the years leading up to the arrest of Williams. Bathing debates had been ongoing for about three decades, creating and changing restrictions of when ethnic groups, and particularly African Americans, were permitted to use beaches and boardwalks; the annexation of West Park, an area primarily made up of African Americans, Jews, Italians, and some Irish led to discussions on morality, voting rights, and taxation; and other debates around employment, prohibition, gambling, boarding houses, prostitution, and land ownership. Asbury Park was initially formed as a type of religious refuge or town designed to be “free of vice.”
The developments that took place from November 13-15 in 1910 demonstrate a clear and dramatic example of the “Jim Crow North.” This is a concept that disputes the idea that racism, bigotry, and violence were exclusive to and emblematic of only the American South. As the experience of Thomas Williams illustrates, violent outbursts from the white population in northern towns not only occurred but that the systems of prejudice were well established in northern towns. On November 13, 1910, just after 9 p.m., Thomas Williams was woken up while sleeping on a couch in a dark room by reporter Alvin Cliver, detective David Hankinson, and businessman Randolph Miller. He was subsequently arrested and the boarding house where he lived was searched.
The week before, Cliver had been at home when a neighbor told him and his wife about Marie Smith, a local ten-year-old girl who had been violated and murdered. He then started his investigation by speaking to the only Black man that has been around the family frequently. Williams worked as a handyman for Mrs. Delila Jackson, Marie Smith’s aunt. Cliver sought out Williams and when not satisfied with his account of Wednesday November 11, Cliver began to follow Williams, when Williams did not come to a search meeting Cliver contrived, he cast suspicion on Williams to the police. Cliver’s presence at the arrest of Thomas Williams was premeditated to keep the story to himself and prevent being “scooped.”
Over next two hours, Thomas Williams is interrogated; first by Chief William Smith then lower-level officers of the Asbury Park Police Department. The day following the arrest of Williams, which he arranged, Cliver’s article appeared in The Asbury Park Evening Press. In this article, Cliver asserted William’s guilt, presented circumstantial evidence as fact, and called for a demonstration. This Monday, November 14, 1910, County Sheriff Clarence E. F. Hetrick appointed Detective Minugh as lead interrogator. Minugh arrived early in the afternoon and proceeded to question Williams at length in Chief Smith’s office. At the end of his questioning, Minugh gripped William’s arm as he led him across the building into a dark room across from the basement cells. When a lantern was switched on, Williams was confronted with the mutilated body of Marie Smith. His interrogators demanded Williams swear his innocence, going so far as to force Williams to look the dead child in the face and touch her. Williams slowly placed a hand on her cheek and swore, “I thank god I can say I didn’t do it. I am sorry for her and for her family, but I didn’t do it, so help me god.” He was returned to his cell and Minugh was left doubting William’s guilt.
Throughout the day, as word of William’s arrest spread, a crowd gathered in front of the Police and Fire Station on Mattison Avenue in Asbury Park. Just before 9 p.m., Coroner Purdy received a phone call warning him that a large crowd of men had gathered and walked from Whitesville intent on besieging the police station. Enroute, they robbed a mason’s store taking with them a large sledgehammer, crow bars, and large iron rods. Purdy then called Chief Smith and they put together a hasty plan.
Williams, in his cell, could hear the riot, amassed to an estimated 600 white people reported as the local men and their eldest sons, shouting for the police to release Williams to the rioters. Rioters shouted, “shoot him, lynch him, let us at him” and “Mingo Jack!” Mingo Jack, was a black man hanged in 1885 in Eatontown after being accused of mugging a white woman. Similarly, though the accusations were based on rumors and hearsay, townspeople gathered into a riot, stormed the police station, and hanged the innocent man. Afterwards, the accusations were uniformly proven false. Chief Smith called in all off-duty officers, swore in fire-fighters as temporary guardsmen, handed out weapons to reporters cloistered in a room on the second floor, and prepared to clear the mob. During the confusion, Minugh maintained control of access to Thomas Williams throughout to the disappointment of Alvin Cliver. Cliver followed Chief Smith begging to be given access to Williams and swearing to him that he would secure a confession. He was denied unilaterally.
Before the extra officers arrived, the riot broke through the basement door and nearly reached the gate to Thomas William’s cell. Officers rushed down the hallway and used nightsticks to push out the men. After clearing the hallway, they fanned out of the basement door and, as back-up joined them, officers cleared a half block radius around the station. After, Chief Smith made a speech in which he asked the crowd to go home, promised justice within the law, and made a disclosure that is debated. We know the officer told the crowd Williams would not be transferred that evening in accordance with the sheriff and coroner’s orders. In some reports, the Chief announced that Williams had actually been cleared by way of a verified alibi. This was a lie. Williams, either by not having or reading a watch or by design, was missing an hour and a half from his alibi. Cliver, aware of this, was ready to exploit that. No rioters were arrested or penalized for the attack.
By 12:30 a.m. rain had turned into sleet and snow which, though light, cleared some more of the rioters from the streets. Anxious to avoid another riot and potential danger, Chief Smith decided to go forward with transferring Williams to Freehold. At 12:40 p.m., Coroner Purdy, Detective Minugh, and an unidentified officer led Williams to a car where he was pushed to the backseat floor. Once out of Asbury, Williams was pulled up onto the seat until reaching Freehold between 1:20 and 1:25 a.m. The car took a series of backroads passing through Farmingdale and avoided the roadblocks and groups of rioters stationed along the main roadways. Between the police blockade and the transfer, telephone communications arranged several groups of rioters to stage road blocks and mount an attack on vehicles potentially carrying Williams. The rest of the rioters still involved went to the Freehold train station in case Williams was transferred by railway. Williams arrived in Freehold, the vehicle pulling directly into the basement to ensure his safety. As Williams exited the car, officers took hold of him not to subdue him but because they feared he was going to faint. He was escorted to a cell, briefly questioned again, and left to sleep.
Though he was saved from the mad white mob who sought to lynch him, and eventually exonerated, Thomas Williams’s story contains a few pieces of information we still do not know and some documents have yet to be uncovered to further understand this part of his story. When we are able to secure these documents, I hope to continue to tell his story from that night. This was a significant moment but his life and his journey continued after November 15, 1910. Williams’s story continued when Ida B. Wells, working in New York City, hears of his case but this next part takes us out of Asbury Park.
This is an incident that led to the rise of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) legal defense strategy and the Asbury Park Chapter of the NAACP is one of the earliest chapters organized in the United States (U.S.) as a result. Asbury Park’s NAACP played a pivotal role in the rise of the Civil Rights Movement in New Jersey. The Williams incident surely shaped the continued advocacy of this particular branch of the NAACP which continued to play a major role in Black activism in the region, and the state as a whole, through the rise of the modern Civil Rights Movement in the nation during the 1950s.
This essay was informed in large part by 41 newspaper reports from 1910. If you are interested in these articles, please contact me for a full list.
Killian Mann is a history graduate student in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University
Asbury Park train station the dividing line between West and East Asbury, photo by Hettie V. Williams
Hettie V. Williams, PhD
Gentrification Down the Shore by Molly Vollman Makris and Mary Gatta is one of the first sustained academic studies on seasonal gentrification. Makris is an Associate Professor, and Coordinator of the Urban Studies Program, at CUNY-Guttman Community College, and the author of Public Housing and School Choice in a Gentrified City: Youth Experiences of Uneven Opportunity (Palgrave MacMillan, 2015), and Gatta is an Associate Professor at CUNY-Guttman Community College and the author of Waiting onRetirement: Aging and Economic Insecurity in Low-Wage Work (Stanford University Press, 2018). This groundbreaking ethnographic study of Asbury Park explores the connections between employment opportunities, equity, and seasonal gentrification through the lens of intersectionality. Makris and Gatta conducted several focus groups, in-depth interviews, and ethnographic research in Asbury Park to complete their analysis. These research initiatives included the participation of community residents on the West Side of Asbury Park, business owners on the East Side, developers, community activists, employers, educators and government representatives. In this analysis, race relations in the post-industrial city, the role of the LGBTQ community in the history of Asbury, economic development and the barriers to equality faced by the mostly African American community residing on the West Side of the city are at the core of the narrative. The authors utilize an array of sources including secondary source literature, images, quantitative data and census records to support their argument. Their central claim and approach are explained in the opening section of the book:
In this book, we utilize a framework of intersectionality—the overlap of identities and discrimination across race, class, gender, sexuality, and other identities—to help explain how residents and businesses impact and are impacted by seasonality and gentrification (4).
Although gentrification in Asbury Park is seasonal, the authors go on to note that “its effects are lasting.”
Gentrification is the gradual process of slowly reconfiguring a neighborhood landscape that oftentimes leads to the displacement of poor and working-class residents in the process. “In Asbury Park, the growing gentrifier population (largely tourists and seasonal home owners) flood the city during summer to take advantage of the beach, while longtime residents (many low income people of color) struggle to survive economically year round,” state the authors on how gentrification impacts the residents of Asbury Park. Their findings are that the low-income residents of the West Side, for instance, rarely visit the beach on the East Side of town because of the fact that access to the beach is costly. The text is defined by seven chapters that trace the processes of gentrification in relation to race, gender, and class.
The first two chapters cover the history and culture of Asbury Park from the founding of the city in 1871 through the mid-twentieth century. In Chapter One, “the complex and multifaceted history” of Asbury Park and nature of seasonal gentrification is surveyed. The authors find that Asbury Park was “reliant on segregation from the start” (28). African Americans were barred from visiting the beaches and were not integrated into the emerging leisure society and culture that developed in the early twentieth century; de facto segregation was apparent on the beaches into the 1970s. Chapter Two includes a more detailed discussion of the rise of African American culture and society on the West Side as centered around Springwood Avenue.
In Chapter Three, the local labor market and the African American community on the West Side is the focus. It is a story of residents who “struggle to make ends meet in Asbury Park” according to the authors (57). Retail and the expanding service industry fail to provide “real” or sustainable employment opportunities for West Side residents. The service and entertainment industry are also shaped, in part, by what the authors refer to as “aesthetic labor.” Asbury Park’s new Ocean front hotels, hip boutiques, and shops cater to employees that resemble the patrons. The following chapter is a discussion of the business owners and employers.
Chapter Five covers the impact of racism on the African American residents of the West Side and Chapter Six is a discussion of how the “coolness of Asbury Park may be a risk” (133). Many African Americans who live on the West Side told the authors that they were “not using the beach regularly” (102). They paint a stark portrait of how the “boardwalk and beach” are “not a part of” the daily lives of these residents who live on the West Side. Thus, the retail, leisure, and entertainment infrastructure on the East Side indicates that gentrification largely serves the mostly white seasonal visitors. “Having to pay to access the beach is a clear example of how seasonal gentrification influences experiences of young people” (102). In Chapter Six, the authors describe Asbury Park as a city that is “perched right on the precipice of quirky coolness and bland hipster paradise.” They also ponder in this chapter if Asbury Park will be able to maintain its “coolness” amid the expanded influences of developers, investors and periodic visitors.
Makris and Gatta conclude that seasonal gentrification has thus far had a negative impact on the residents of the West Side. Employment opportunities are limited and home ownership has declined significantly among the African American community. The beach and high-end facilities such as the Asbury Ocean Club, that charges more than $400.00 per night, are inaccessible to this community. Gentrification Down the Shore is an important book that sheds light on the impact of gentrification on African Americans living in Asbury Park, New Jersey as the first such text on the subject.
Hettie V. Williams is an Associate Professor of African American History at Monmouth University
On May 14, Professor Melissa Ziobro of the Paradoxical Paradise project won a Diversity Innovation Grant from Monmouth University to help fund a traveling exhibit on the history of the east side of Asbury Park, to include a discussion of segregation there. Ziobro volunteered her time to serve as an advisor on this exhibit, with Kay Harris and her team at the Asbury Park Museum in the lead and Stan Cain providing professional design support.
Titled, “Asbury Park: 150 Years of Change and Transformation — A Segregated Seashore,” the pop-up exhibit is currently installed at the historic Berkeley-Carteret Hotel in Asbury Park. There was a soft opening over Memorial Day weekend and a formal opening ceremony held 8 July, at which point display cases, mannequins in historic dress, and an audio-visual component had been added to the panels of the exhibition. Dignitaries in attendance at the opening included Congressman Frank Pallone, NJ Assembly Members Eric Houghtaling & Joann Downey, Sylvia Sylvia of the Asbury Park Chamber of Commerce, and more.
The banners are in beautiful, engaging, full color, with digestible chunks of text made for consumption by the general public. They provide an overview of the history of Asbury Park’s east side, address the segregation that has plagued Asbury Park’s history in the past, and encourages viewers to wrestle with the perils of gentrification in the present. These banners will move to Monmouth University’s library after the exhibit’s initial run at the Berkeley-Carteret.
Everyone from Monmouth University involved in the Paradoxical Paradise project wants to ensure that the University isn’t impeding or duplicating work being done by the community themselves. Maintaining close ties with community groups, and sharing our time, expertise, and, importantly, resources, is one way that we hope to demonstrate this.
The all-volunteer Asbury Park Museum builds on the success of the Asbury Park Historical Society and is in the process of acquiring a permanent home in downtown Asbury Park, just in time for the 150th anniversary of the city’s founding in 2021. See more here.
The Berkeley-Carteret Hotel has been a fixture in Asbury Park for close to 100 years. It currently offers 257 rooms, and is just steps from the Asbury Park boardwalk. The potential reach of the exhibit is great, with thousands likely to see it during its time at the Hotel alone. See more about the Hotel here.
Melissa Ziobro is Specialist Professor of Public History in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University.
In the 1960s, social rebellion was a constant. All across the country, African Americans, women, members of the LGBTQ community and marginalized groups, more generally, were fighting for basic human rights. While these battles for justice in the North are mostly connected to places such as Newark and Detroit, urban rebellion occurred in Asbury Park, New Jersey as well. It was at the beginning of the 1970s when Asbury Park became a notable part of the Civil Rights Movement. The “Asbury Park Riots” that took place on July 4, 1970 is a little-known event in U.S. history. While the rebellious actions take place over only four days, the impact of this rebellion has become an important part of Asbury Park’s history.
To better understand how the events of that 1970s summer came to occur, we must go back and examine Asbury Park during World War II. At that point in time, several facilities in both the city itself and the greater Monmouth County area had been converted into military training facilities, and the Signal Corps branch at Fort Monmouth had been recruiting new members as well. This, alongside other opportunities presenting themselves, resulted in a large number of young, educated, and highly skilled African Americans coming to the area at once, many of whom chose to stay after their training was complete. Asbury Park’s population was increasing by the thousands during this era, with a large majority of the new residents being African American. However, problems quickly arose when it came to housing these new residents, as Central New Jersey was strictly segregated at this time through real estate regulations. This meant that African Americans in Asbury Park had to live in very specific locations such as the neighborhood commonly referred to as “West Side.” These areas were sometimes described as “blighted” with much poorer living conditions, as well as fewer jobs and recreational activities for the youth who lived there.
It is on this stage that the incident known as the “Asbury Park Riot” took place on July 4, 1970. The rebellion began with a group of Black youths, after a late-night dance, began throwing rocks and bottles at one another—a fairly common recreational practice at the time. At some point in the night, one of these projectiles reportedly struck a stopped car. While the initial damage was likely accidental, it spurred on the group to start assaulting other vehicles passing by, with more joining them as other late-night events began finishing and more youths flooded out onto the city streets. By the early morning, a rebellion had begun. Subsequently, the Asbury Park police force was called to respond. While there had been no known injuries that night, a fire had been lit within the West Side community. Over the next three days, the rebellion continued, not only becoming more intense than before, but also more coordinated. The initial destruction was seemingly more wanton, vandalizing cars and breaking storefront windows with no regard for who they belonged to. However, by the third day of the rebellion, on July 7, those involved were specifically targeting white businesses. The 7th has additional significance to the events of the rebellion, as it was then that a group of Black leaders from the West Side appeared before Asbury Park’s governing council. At this meeting, the West Side community presented a list of demands that included the completion of urban renewal and increased jobs for both adults and youth of the area. This came to a head on the very next day, the 8th of July, when the council came forward and announced they would only agree to some of the more mundane demands.
The rebellion reached a peak on the night of the 8th when the police, while in pursuit, began firing upon the group of nearly 100 Black youths. While the officers claim to have fired above the crowd to dissuade them from attacking, nearly 50 people were admitted to the hospital with bullet wounds all of them having been among the fleeing crowd. This mass hospitalization marked the ending of the incident known as the “Asbury Park Riots.” When discussing the reasons behind these events opinions were split, even at the time. On one hand, many white people saw these actions as mindless rioting by the Black community as the letters to the mayor contained in the Joseph F. Mattice Papers located at Duke University Library clearly suggest.
Joseph F. Mattice, mayor at the time of the Asbury Park Riots, was very public in his belief that the fault lay entirely with the African American youths. He also made an effort to blame West Side community leaders. All of the measures he took were active attempts to stamp down on the Black community including issuing a curfew and calling in state troopers to bolster the local police. Many people wrote in to Mayor Mattice, not to inquire as to why the riots were happening, but to demand the destruction of the Black community in retribution. In contrast, there were also those who saw the rioting as a revolt against the systems that failed them. This is especially spurred on by looking at the events of the 8th, where the rebellion only began after it was made clear that the demands of the community were not going to be met. Discussion even extended outside of the state, with event coverage appearing in the New York Times and in the famed African American newspaper Chicago Daily Defender. The Black press specifically called out the failures of both the infrastructure and the police as the main causes of the rioting.
Justin Montana is a graduate student in history in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University
Further Reading
Johnson, Rudy. “Asbury Park Blacks List 21 Demands, Putting Emphasis on Jobs.” The New York Times, July 8, 1970.
Montgomery, Paul L. “The ‘Hot Summer’ Comes to Asbury Park.” The New York Times, July 12, 1970, sec. Help Wanted.
Weeks, Daniel. “From Riot to Revolt: Asbury Park in July 1970.” New Jersey Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 2, no. 2 (July 1, 2016): 80–111.
My name is Gillian Demetriou and I am currently a senior history major at Monmouth University with minors in English and public history. Professor Ziobro recruited me to conduct oral history interviews for Paradoxical Paradise while I was taking her Oral History class as an independent study during the Fall 2020 semester. My main job on the project this past Spring 2021 semester consisted of helping to locate potential narrators, researching relevant questions for them, and then conducting the recorded oral histories with them.
How does the process start? Usually either Professor Ziobro or I reach out to an individual we think might be a good fit, and explain the goal of the project and ask them if they would like to be interviewed. It is really important that they understand that these interviews will be made publicly accessible. Once they agree, we usually schedule the interview then I start doing research and writing up questions to ask the narrator, which I usually send to them prior to the interview. The actual interview takes anywhere from half an hour to an hour or even two, depending on how much the narrator feels like talking.
So far, I personally have interviewed five people: Councilwoman Eileen Chapman; Director of the Monmouth County Boys and Girls Club Doug Eagles; Director of the Asbury Park Chamber of Commerce Sylvia Sylvia; Co-founder of the Asbury Park Dinner Table Julie Andreola; and Dr. Pat Conolly, a chiropractor who practices in Asbury Park. These first interviews touched on people’s experiences in Asbury Park generally, but were especially focused on how COVID-19 is impacting the community.
I really enjoy conducting these interviews and listening to everyone’s individual experience within Asbury Park, the COVID pandemic, and how they feel they have impacted their community. One of the things that really stuck out to me was in my interview with Mr. Eagles. He discussed how the Boy and Girls Club was preparing themselves to tackle the mental impact of the pandemic: “we’re focused on really trying to pivot and adjust to meeting kind of the mental health fallout from COVID. Everyone, right, has been a little bit more isolated, and the communities that we serve had experienced different levels of trauma, even before COVID, and with COVID that has kind of exacerbated the levels of trauma that a lot of the kids that we work with endure. And so, we have worked over the past three to four months to build the capacity of our staff to address, through a trauma informed lens, the different mental health issues that some of our club members are dealing with.”
Hearing about initiatives like these that have made me want to continue working on this project throughout the summer. I have learned so much about all these different people and the community of Asbury Park. My favorite thing is when we get to the end of the interview and I shut the recording off and whoever I’m talking to asks me if that was okay, did they answer the questions well, did they tell me what I wanted to hear. I always tell them that this is an opportunity for them to tell their own story from their own perspective and I am simply there to listen, ask them questions, and document their experience. It has been so inspiring to me during this difficult time to hear the extraordinary things these people are doing to uplift their community and I’m looking forward to reaching out to more people.
Gillian Demetriou is an undergraduate student at Monmouth University
I would like to share a bit about the Paradoxical Paradise oral history work funded by Monmouth University’s Urban Coast Institute this past Spring 2021 semester. Some of the funding from a grant awarded by Monmouth University’s Urban Coast Institute (UCI) awarded to our project Paradoxical Paradise went towards conducting and transcribing oral histories, seeking specifically to record the historic impact of COVID-19 in Asbury Park, across different demographics.
The Paradoxical Paradise oral history interviews funded by this grant were conducted under my supervision by three students. I have 15+ years’ experience doing oral history, and am the current president of Oral History in the Mid-Atlantic Region. The three students (Gillian Demetriou, Kelly Dender, and Vincent Sauchelli) were trained by me in the Fall 2020, so we did not have to use grant dollars for that. They were ready to hit the ground running.
In setting up this oral history piece of Paradoxical Paradise, we worked closely with the Asbury Park Historical Society and Asbury Park Museum because we wanted to ensure that the community is helping to shape the work and feels shared ownership of the work. I’d like to thank all of our community partners here, for the record, especially Kay Harris.
9 interviews were conducted/transcribed with UCI grant dollars. The transcripts are being edited and will be posted to our Paradoxical Paradise website shortly.
The narrators interviewed under this grant were as follows:
Julie Andreola, Co-founder, Asbury Park Dinner Table
Eileen Chapman, Asbury Park Councilwoman
Dr. Patrick Connelly, Owner, Connelly Chiropractic
Tim Cabrey, Non-Profit Organizer
Douglas Eagles, Boys and Girls Club of Monmouth County
Daniel Harris, Second Baptist Church
Sylvia Sylvia, Asbury Park Chamber of Commerce
Claude Taylor, longtime Asbury Park resident
Pedro Trivella, Asbury Park resident
Each narrator had a unique, irreplaceable story/perspective on the pandemic to share. For example, as Claude Taylor noted:
It is the case that the health disparities get amplified, have been amplified in the COVID experience of Asbury Park. It’s similar to other parts of the state that have the kind of dynamics that we see here in the Asbury Park area within Monmouth County.
So access to equitable health care is one of those challenges, you have to leave town in a lot of ways to get quality health care, to get really much health care. Now, I do know that there are clinics, outpatient and kind of other kinds of medical clinics in town. But the hospitals again, where I was born Fitkin’s General Hospital, Fitkin’s Memorial Hospital, which is now Jersey Shore Medical Center is it’s not walking distance, it’s a trip out of Asbury Park to get to a hospital.
Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch is the next closest hospital. So, I think the quality and access to health care in Asbury Park has created some of the negative experiences and the drawbacks, and then the harm of COVID-19 in Asbury Park too. And those inequities existed before COVID started and they got amplified during the pandemic and continue now into now, here we are at the end of March and 2021. My perception is that there are still these long-term health disparities in the town, which translate to higher incidence of COVID. And the kind of higher incidence of really extended COVID harm. So like the ways that people are affected by COVID, the illness is more deadly to folks in the town, and access to health care, is one of those areas, I think is really a problem.
Validating the barriers to access to healthcare that Claude noted, Eileen Chapman discussed fighting to bring testing to Asbury Park, recalling:
…one of my concerns was that we were not seeing any areas for COVID testing. So I worked with the county and with my local doctor… who then brought in doctors from urgent care to figure out how we could set up a testing site in our city, and make it accessible to everyone… So we created this whole program and it took months to do this…but we’re doing the same thing now with vaccinations…we wanted to get them … to the residents who don’t …drive. And so, they’re now going into our senior center on Springwood Avenue to do vaccinations.
Availability of vaccines is one issue. Convincing people to take them is another. Daniel Harris discussed African American residents’ concerns about the COVID vaccines, noting:
…What I see right now, and this is something that’s actually a national thing and we’re working on fixing it here in Asbury, is that when they first opened up the senior center for COVID vaccinations, I arrived and I said, “Damn, what is it? Did they have a white folks convention?” There was so many white people out there…I looked at the sign, I thought, “Oh, they’re doing COVID vaccinations here.”
…The… thing we’re fighting is there’s so much mistrust in the black community in reference to government medicine. Black people won’t take it because they think they’ll kill us anyway. You know the Tuskegee Experiment? You know when they didn’t even tell people they were killing them? We have to overcome that…
Thanks to the UCI, powerful narratives like these are now a part of the historical record. They will help us document the current crisis and provide lessons learned as we move forward, together.
Melissa Ziobro is a Specialist Professor of Public History in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University
New Jersey’s coastal cities such as Atlantic City and Asbury Park were an attractive place of settlement to African Americans in the early twentieth century. This surge in the black population was greatest in counties such as Atlantic, Essex, Monmouth, Union and Camden. African American migrants relocated primarily to cities in New Jersey such as Newark, Atlantic City, Asbury Park, and Trenton then to smaller suburbs such as Westfield, Summit, and Montclair. In counties such as Essex and Atlantic, where the black population increased most dramatically, a burgeoning black elite and professional class expanded and fermented a strident activism through such organizations as the NAACP and the YWCA among many other local institutions.
By 1910, more than half of the black population, an estimated 55,900 blacks, lived in the northern section of the state residing in counties such as Essex and Monmouth. In Essex County, the black population was at 18,104 in 1910 (the highest in the state) while Atlantic County located in the southern section of the state experienced a significant increase in the growth of its black population from 1900 to 1910. The rise of the hotel and leisure industry in Atlantic City made the city a major destination for African Americans fleeing Jim Crow in search of better economic opportunities in the North. In places such as Newark, New Jersey, located in Essex County, Asbury Park, located in Monmouth, and Atlantic City in Atlantic County black elite and professional associations became particularly pronounced and well positioned in both the social and political arena.
African Americans began to enter the city of Asbury Park in large numbers after 1910. Many came in search of employment in the leisure industry as the city became a burgeoning resort spot for well-to-do vacationers. Most settled on the West side of the city. Asbury Park’s West Side became a center for African American life and culture particularly clustered around Springwood Avenue as the city also became noticeably more segregated. Springwood Avenue was central to East Coast Jazz Age culture through the 1950s. This was the location of the historic Turf Club on the corner of Springwood and Atkins Avenue. Billie Holiday, Lionel Hampton, Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald were among the artists that played at the various clubs on the West Side. The ten- block area of the Westside was home to venues that shaped the development of Jazz, gospel and rhythm and blues on the East Coast and the nation from 1910 to 1970.
During the World War II era, the Black Population of Asbury Park increased from 3,513 to 4,300. The local housing authority also oversaw three public housing projects that were developed on the Westside between 1941 and 1952. Asbury Park became a military training center during the war as the government took over the YMCA and Convention Hall. African Americans continued to enter the city in large numbers in search of work securing jobs as skilled laborers and as service personnel. The Signal Corps located at Fort Monmouth in Eatontown, New Jersey was also a place where some Black Americans were able to obtain work during the war. Asbury Park increasingly became a city divided by railroad tracks. In this arrangement, the vast majority of African Americans lived on the West Side.
Suburbanization and the rise of highway culture in the 1950s helped to precipitate a white flight from urban centers in New Jersey such as Asbury Park. With the rise of the Civil Rights Movement by 1955, African Americans began to increasingly demand access to quality education, jobs and public facilities across the American South while being more critical of de facto segregation in the North. By 1970, there was little or no improvement to public housing that became noticeably more dilapidated. Though the immediate cause of the Asbury rebellion of 1970 remains somewhat unclear, substandard housing, decline in employment opportunities (especially for the younger adult population), and de facto segregation were major concerns of the Black community on the eve of the rebellion. There were an estimated 17,000 African Americans living in Asbury Park (30 percent of the total population) by July of 1970.
The Asbury Park rebellion erupted on July 4, 1970. Some causes include unemployment, substandard housing, corruption and the lack of recreational activities in the city for Black young adults. A key issue for African American leaders in the community at the time was the lack of employment for African American youths in the city. Jobs once made available to this group were disappearing as white teenagers came to occupy most summer employment opportunities. Black leaders made demands related to youth employment prior to the rebellion. According to eyewitness accounts of the event, the conflict began after a group of African American teenagers broke some shop windows following a dance at the West Side Community Center. Broken windows eventually led to nearly seven days of looting and property destruction in the city. This insurrection lasted until July 10. An estimated 180 people were injured and this included 15 New Jersey State troopers with 46 people admitted to the hospital. There was also more than 5 million dollars of property damage left in the wake of the rebellion. Many African Americans who resided on the West Side were displaced from their dwellings as the white flight from the city dramatically accelerated after July, 1970.
Hettie V. Williams is an Associate Professor of African American history in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University.
Asbury Park is a city located in Monmouth County, New Jersey (on the central coast of the state) with a rich cultural and social history. This city is named for Francis Asbury, the first American Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, and founded in 1871 by James A. Bradley—a wealthy New York brush manufacturer, philanthropist and politician. He was Asbury Park’s first mayor, councilman, and postmaster from 1874 – 1884. When the city’s first newspaper the Asbury Park Journal was established, Bradley served as editor from 1876 to 1910. He was also instrumental in the development of the nearby beach town Bradley Beach that carries his name.
Bradley created his own brush manufacturing business Bradley & Smith in 1857 New York City after working in the industry as an apprentice for several years. He eventually became a Methodist and acquainted with the Ocean Grove Meeting Association of Methodists. This Association ran a camp meeting in Ocean Grove. While visiting one of Association’s summer camp meetings in Ocean Grove, Bradley got the idea to purchase land in New Jersey to develop his resort town. He subsequently secured 500 acres in the area between the Long Branch, New Jersey railroad and Deal Lake and named this possession Asbury Park. Bradley wanted to prohibit the sale of alcohol in Asbury Park, so there was a clause that his town would be a temperance resort. The rationale here was to allow families to enjoy themselves without having to deal with rowdy crowds. Thus, Asbury Park was first developed as a residential resort town.
By 1879, Asbury Park had become a thriving city. Bradley went on to install progressive types of infrastructure in order to attract businessmen to this beach front city. He accomplished this by installing a boardwalk along the waterfront with an orchestra pavilion, and public changing rooms, along with a pier on the south end of the boardwalk. Another Asbury Park pioneer, Uriah White, was the first to install an artisan well in town. One of the businessmen that Bradley attracted was Coney Island entrepreneur, George C. Tilyou. In 1880, he would bring his steeplechase amusements, including his famous “Tillie Face” to Asbury Park. Eight years later, in 1888, Ernest Schnitzler would install the Palace Merry – Go – Round and soon other attractions followed, in what would become the cornerstone of the Palace Amusements Complex. Partial to using gas lit lamps along the boardwalk, Bradley opted instead to use electric lights. And, by 1885 Asbury Park was the first coastal city in New Jersey to have electricity. This also meant that the city was able to complete a trolley line in 1887, the second in the country. Bradley was one of the earliest to have a telephone in his home in 1878, leading to the development of a local telephone system in 1881. In this same year, the first sewage system was installed. Bradley set up water and gas works in 1884. Segregation was instituted on the beaches and boardwalk early in the city’s history by Bradley who was under pressure from white hotel owners. Some historians have argued that he was in fact an avowed segregationist.
In 1902, Bradley had to sell the city to a private contractor because he was sued by the city of Asbury Park and lost. The beachfront now belonged to the city of Asbury Park and the boardwalk was rebuilt along with new jetties and a bathing plant. The city’s property value then began to increase making it possible for residential and business districts to grow. More amusements were added, and the city adopted a commission form of government. Bradley was never a fan of the changes that occurred in Asbury Park and remained bitter until the day he died in 1921. Bradley and his wife Helen M. Packard never had any children.
Eventually, convention halls and casinos were built as residential areas began to grow in popularity. Today, Asbury Park has become a destination for musicians such as Bruce Springsteen, and Bon Jovi, while tourists also come for the shopping, swimming and dining experiences.
Michele is a graduate student in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University
