Research on the history of African Americans in Asbury Park
There are only a limited number of scholarly analyses that exist on the history of African Americans in Asbury Park. This is a list of both scholarly and popular histories with a focus on African Americans in the history of Asbury Park, New Jersey also including a few important scholarly works/general histories on the subject of Asbury Park and African Americans in New Jersey history that focus on Monmouth County or the state as a whole. It is our hope that this list will continuously be updated with the latest research on the history of African Americans in Asbury Park, New Jersey.
Scholarly Books and Journal Articles
Books:
Greason, Walter D. Suburban Erasure: How the Suburbs Ended the Civil Rights Movement in New Jersey. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013.
Hodges, Graham Russell Gao. Black New Jersey: 1664 to the Present Day. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2019.
Makris, Molly Vollman, and Mary Gatta. Gentrification Down the Shore. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2021.
MacLeod, Dewar. Making the Scene in the Garden State: Popular Music in New Jersey from Edison to Springsteen and Beyond. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2020.
Sokol, Jason. All Eyes are Upon Us: Race and Politics from Boston to Brooklyn. New York: Basic Books, 2014.
Wilson, Harold F. The Story of the Jersey Shore. Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc., 1964.
Wolff, Daniel J. 4th of July, Asbury Park: A History of the Promised Land. New York: Bloomsbury, 2005.
Journal Articles:
Ammon, Francesca Russello. “Post-industrialization and the City of Consumption: Attempted Revitalization in Asbury Park, New Jersey.” Journal of Urban History 41, no. 2 (February, 2015): 158-174.
Chung, Nogin. “Transforming a Beauty Pageant: Mrs. America Contests in the Palisades Amusement Park and Asbury Park, NJ.” New Jersey History: Studies in State and Regional History 126, no. 1 (2011): 18-25.
Goldberg, David. “Greetings from Jim Crow, New Jersey: Contesting the Meaning and Abandonment of Reconstruction in the Public and Commercial Spaces of Asbury Park, 1880-1890.” Concept: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Graduate Studies 30, 2006.
Jinno, Keisuke. “Public Housing for Lower-Middle Income Families: New Jersey’s State Housing Program in the Late 1940s.” New Jersey Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 4,no. 2 (2018): 129-159.
Moore, Louis. “The Retreats of Reconstruction: Race, Leisure, and the Politics of Segregation at the Jersey Shore, 1865-1920.” New Jersey Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 3, no. 2 (2017): 276-278.
Weeks, Daniel. “From Riot to Revolt: Asbury Park in July 1970.” New Jersey Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 2, no. 2 (2016): 80-111.
Popular History Books and Essays
Bilby, Joseph G., and Harry F. Ziegler. Asbury Park: A Brief History. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2009.
________. Asbury Park Reborn: Lost to Time and Restored to Glory. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2012.
Jackson Carter, Madonna. Asbury Park: A West Side Story, A Pictorial Journey Through the Eyes of Joseph A. Carter, Sr. Denver: Outskirts Press, 2006.
Lamb, Lisa. Asbury Park Revisted. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2015.
Pike, Helen C. Asbury Park. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2003.
________. Asbury Park’s Glory Days: The Story of an American Resort. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005.
Pomorski, Chris and Alan Chin. “Revitalization Greetings from Asbury Park: Beneath the New Jersey Shore Town’s Shimmering Renaissance, Racial and Economic Divides Undermine a Postcard-Perfect City Plan.” Next City, August, 2016.
Tresniowski, Alex. The Rope: A True Story of Murder, Heroism, and the Dawn of the NAACP. New York: 37 Ink, 2021.
Please feel free to make suggestions for works that might be included to historyhettie@gmail.com as we continue to update and expand this list.