THE ASBURY VOICE - OCTOBER 8, 2019 ISSUE # 4

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THE ASBURY VOICE

Journal of the People

You are not voiceless but are often unheard

We can change that together

October, 2019 # 4

In This Issue:

Introduction and Purpose

My Experience of the the July 1970 Riots by Sid Bernstein

Give Earth a Chance to Rebound - Joyce Grant

Classrooms - by Ricard Quatrone

Experiencing Homelessness (1)

Cooperatives Amidst the Privatization of Asbury Park - Rev Gil

Introduction and Purpose of The Asbury Voice

CLICK HERE

My Experience of the

July 1970 Riots

by Sid Bernstein,

Co-Founder of

"Citizens for a Diverse and Open Society"

In 1961, my wife, Maddy and I, opened our first ladies shoe store in Red Bank, New Jersey. We worked alone for two years before we felt we could afford to hire some help. She was by my side, performing a juggling act between working with me in the store and raising the children at home for eighteen years.

We finally decided that we needed help in the store, so I ran an advertisement in the 'Help Wanted' section in the local newspaper, for a salesperson. Who knows about that in these days! Five people applied. Four white people and one African American young man. Only because he had some experience in a clothing store on Springwood Avenue, while the others had no retail experience, I hired him.

Not long after, two ladies who had been a couple of my first customers when I opened the store told me, that they “would not shop in my store anymore.” I asked: “Why? Was it the service, the prices or the merchandise?” They actually told me, it was because I “hired a ‘colored’ person .” To remind you, that was in the early 1960's.

Four years after I opened the first store, in 1965, I opened a store in Asbury Park, about 14 miles from my store in Red Bank. And then, five years later, on July 4th, 1970, my store and more than fifty other stores were destroyed by the combustible heat of a racial riot. What resulted was a thriving town that turned into 35 years of utter stagnation, and for me, it left me with bitter memories, and to ask the question: What Causes Riots?

Days before the riot started, which lasted for four days, you could feel tensions whirling in the breeze from the ocean only a few blocks away. Closer to town, with acute perception, you could hear the unspoken thoughts of white politicians and racists who wished to "keep them in their place," and the chanting by “colored” men and women, threatening "No Justice. No Peace." I did know about the riots throughout the last half of the 1960's working their flames eastward across America, beginning in Watts, California, in a ‘crescendo’, burning everything in their way, and having seen riots televised in nearby Newark and Camden.

Some members of the African American community of Asbury Park (and supposedly, some outside activists) seized their chance to emphatically state their demands for summer jobs for school children, permanent jobs for local residents, more affordable housing – that HUD neglected to continue to build -- and to hang lights on the basketball courts so the teenagers could play at night. And for me, to witness this neglect to satisfy human needs, then and now, is an indelible stain on American soil.

Another incident that had happened is hard to forget. A day before the outbreak of the actual rioting, about a dozen merchants, including myself, gathered for breakfast at a local restaurant near the beach, called Michaels. One of the men heard through the grape vine some terrible news, but he hesitated to tell us until everyone was seated, and waited until two “colored” busboys finished pouring coffee and orange juice. After we were seated, and as the busboys were walking away, I heard one of the guests say: “Wait till those jungle bunnies go into the kitchen.”

Then, the person, who had heard the rumor, told us that State Troopers were being sent to Asbury Park with orders to “shoot to kill.” When I heard that, I felt as if I was in Alabama or in Mississippi, and it was the 1950s or the 1940s, or earlier. And, with such racist remarks and innuendos still piercing the air around us, there doesn’t seem to be even one step forward of humane progress since that time. And that is why we are still standing at the door of the cave!

Fortunately, the riot abated, but not the frustration, the pain, and the feeling of disenfranchisement that remain in the African American communities. I was compelled to somehow help in an attempt to bring some harmony to the town. For days I visited the other merchants, who had nothing to do, but to mill around their shattered stores, and so I asked them to 'pledge to hire one person' from the West side of town. I received 50 pledges from individual merchants and a 'pledge to hire 50 employees’ from the president of Steinbach's Department store, Michael Slovak, who was impressed and thought the idea was great.

Everyone was encouraged. But, as usual, it was stopped by the power of the ‘authoritarian class’. They were afraid, they said, of a "backlash" from offering this proposal. They said, “ They should ask for jobs .” Well, I believe they did ask for jobs, in the only way to be heard! How asinine. How insensitive towards our fellow human beings. And that sealed the fate of this town. To paraphrase Langston Hughes, Asbury Park dried up “ like a raisin in the sun ; festering, like a sore.”

Yes, what does a 39 year old young man really know what’s going on around his world, even when taking an interest! To paraphrase Martin Luther King, Jr. who explained this chaos, by saying: “ It is not who caused the problem. But, what caused it.” What I do know is that racism was the catalyst! No one can convince me differently because I clearly heard words like

“It’s their culture”

“They want things without working for them.

That’s why they riot”

“You need to keep them in their place”

It is denying reality. It also is revealing reality

To prevent racial progress from happening is unconscionable. It is oppressive and un-American. In fact, it clearly reveals the sad truth of how one race of people oppress another. I heard what was said. I saw what happened. I know what was done... I was there!

After more than a generation later, none of what happened on that 4 ^th of July weekend in 1970 has faded. The same disparaging treatment of the minority group is only being revisited by current reverberations in Asbury Park, by depriving and demeaning the African American community the same way as forty-nine years ago.

WHAT SID DID NEXT CLICK HERE

GIVE EARTH A CHANCE TO REBOUND

By Joyce Grant

This is a time when all life on earth is in danger. According to a global assessment from the United Nations Intergovernmental Policy on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service, there are eight million plant and animal species endangered or extinct. One million plant and animal species are in danger in New Jersey. Only five percent of the ocean is protected. Half of the ocean must be protected to make a real difference. Bleaching and death of coral reefs, shrinking Arctic Sea ice during summer months, overfishing, polluting of marine environments are some of the causes of devastation to our oceans. For over 50 years we have been warned by experts foretelling the effects of climate change. We are a witness to at least one climate crisis per week: floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, heat waves, wildfires. All of these events place not only the earth in danger but all life.

Many community members, scientists, environmental and social organizations, firefighters, emergency responders, commissions, and others have made it their mission to save, protect lives, and revive the loss of valuable parts of our biosphere. These voices need to be heard and heeded in order for our earth to rebound. Some of these concerned citizens are using the “power of law” to preserve our coastlines, parks, waterways, public lands, and protect people’s health, as well as combating climate change. Others use the freedom of information act to help with the lack of transparency of governing bodies.

Now is the time to publicly, collectively, and passionately choose to help either financially or through hands-on volunteering. Now is the time to protest, join a group, pay attention, and be informed of the global humanitarian and climate crisis we are experiencing right now.

The young, and the children are leading the way with their resolve to make the world a better, just, ethical, and peaceful place. They bring a fresh perspective, energetic technological and media savvy, respect for knowledge, truth telling and elder wisdom to the issues.

Remember no one has the right to destroy our clean air, clean water, wildlife and public lands solely for profit or personal gain.

Now is the time to give the earth a chance to rebound. To stop the continuing destruction of all that is essential for our survival. Crisis provokes us to reach out to others, build community relationships, to find solutions. Now is the time.

Joyce Grant, Environmental and Social Justice Activist

{This article first appeared in the Coaster and we received permission from Joyce Grant to have it published here}

CLASSROOMS

holy places!

that's what they really are.

why?

because people are created inside them.

and how well they are created depends on

many things, most of all teachers.

I've been in many classrooms, both as a student

and as a teacher.

my life was saved by the schools.

too much, you say?

take Mr. Curtis Lee, for a prime example.

he was my 8th grade teacher at Washington School,

Lyndhurst , NJ.

he taught only one year

and in that year he turned my life around.

I was an ungrateful, unruly, but intelligent boy.

I would walk behind Mr. Lee's desk and give him

the finger in full view of the class

or I would throw spitballs up to the ceiling

over my desk

or I would bring a cherry bomb firecracker

and put it on the corner of my desk as my classmates

and I ate lunch in the classroom.

things like this.

disrespectful and troublesome.

and Mr. Lee knew about all of it

just as he knew about me

and cared about me and all his students.

so much so that he came to my mother's little

basement apartment, where she raised me as

what today is called a single parent

and he told my mother I was very bright

and had potential.

I sat beside her and was privately moved

and impressed that this teacher cared enough

to come to save me from myself.

he even took me to Queen of Peace High School

and met with the principal to get me in

but of course my overall school record was

below par despite the fact that I had gone

from a C student to all A's in Mr. Lee's classroom.

and so I went to Lyndhurst High School and

made something out of myself.

but this poem has gotten away from its

full topic, classrooms.

those places where students like me,

from stressed homes or, like me,

a dysfunctional life, can find structure

and words and ideas that took me

to a larger world.

so, never underestimate classrooms

and the schools that are filled with them.

never miss the opportunities that are inside

them.

and never underestimate the genuine

intelligence of kids, all kids, every single

kid.

I'm talking to all of us, but especially to

us adults.

and especially to school administrators,

town officials, boards of education, parents,

and non-parents.

never, ever, turn down a school budget.

never, ever, short change the kids by

allowing them to have second or third rate

books and materials.

such books tell students they are not respected.

make sure their history and literature books

contain truth and stories that include in a real

and substantial way their cultures, their races,

their genders.

but also makes sure their books take them

beyond, way beyond, the limitations of race,

gender, and their particular cultures.

make sure our kids are delivered to the entire

world, past, present, future, with an aim to make

that future a loving, wise, and healthy one.

let's be our best selves and have courage.

Rich Quatrone August 30, 2019

Experiencing Homelessness in Asbury Park (1)

Here at The Asbury Voice we don’t believe that anyone is voiceless, we believe everyone has a voice and that their voice is important, but we also believe that not all those who have a voice and a story have the privilege and power to be heard. Often one can read about homelessness in America from the perspective of Sociologists or other professional, but it is rare that we hear directly from those experiencing homelessness in print. So over the course of the Asbury Voice’s future you will hear from different people experiencing homelessness in Asbury Park.

Why do we say people experiencing homelessness? It is sure a mouthful, but we say it because no one is homeless (people are beautiful human beings that have felt joy, pain, sadness and love), homelessness is something you experience. Homelessness is something created by an unjust system that does not see housing as a human right.

Derek Minno-Blume

These are two stories:

Carlos

I met Carlos at Trinity Church in Asbury Park at their Saturday weekly meal for those experiencing homelessness as well as those in need of a good meal. Carlos is no longer homeless, but was homeless a little over a year ago, and was written up in the Asbury Park Press at that time for his leadership role both at the homeless encampment in Neptune and for his involvement in reaching out to the homeless gathered at the Asbury Park train station. On the days they found themselves with a surplus of food, because of the generosity of others at the Neptune encampment, Carlos initiated a program to share their abundance with the homeless in Asbury - homeless feeding the homeless.

For him it is unacceptable to make the homeless bad people - those who are mentally ill, or disabled, or addicted. “You don’t give up on people. God does not give up on us, so why should we give up on others. Everybody here today at Trinity deserves a place to live and be taken care of. People have problems - instead of judging them, help them.”

Barbara

At one point in her life Barbara was homeless - down and out with serious addiction issues. She said people of all classes can become homeless. And there are reasons they are homeless besides alcohol and drugs. She found herself on the street at the age of 15, because she was abused. She moved from motel to motel. Luckily she always had some man in her life who took care of her or whatever you want to call that. She saw things in her life that the normal person would never see. But she has never forgotten where she came from and thanks God for the nice apartment she has today.

She has cried a lot of tears. She changed her life one day when she looked in the mirror and saw another person - a person who was destroying herself, a person who looked twenty years older and a person who looked like something the cat dragged in. She just got tired of being tired. She got tired of being used and abused. She realized that those who sold drugs to her, would use her until they couldn’t use her anymore. She had no friends. She spent her check without paying her rent. When she needed help, no one was there. And she saw the dealers in their expensive cars and chains around their necks and said to herself I bought all that for you.

What does a homeless person look like? She has seen people come to the Church with nice clothes and hair done up and then go live in their car. She no longer judges a person by what she sees. We all have our image of a person experiencing homelessness. She now knows how important it is to reach out to a person and let them know she cares. So many have experienced being kicked to the curb, when they ask for help.They need someone who gives a damn. When she was experiencing homelessness there was nothing in the city for her. There were shelters for men, a woman could take a shower there and then she had to go back on the street. And then people wondered why people are panhandling or selling their body. Barbara volunteers at Trinity Church now during the week and lets people cry on her shoulder. They bring tears to her eyes. She asks herself, “What can I say to them?” She asks herself, “What can I do? I can listen, let them know I care and point out resources to them.” It breaks her heart when they report back to her they are not eligible for this or that because of even a single past offense and are turned away.

Barbara use to go to a gasoline station just to wash herself down. And then she would go to steal some clothes, just to put clean clothes on. She never got caught. Now she can buy a $10 pair of jeans for herself. There was a time she never heard the birds chirping in the morning, or saw the sun rise at the break of day, because she was in a dark place getting high. Now she can look at the sun on awakening and be thankful for the day and discover ways to lift up those who have no one.

There was a friendly buzz around Trinity on Saturday. As people entered they received two tickets for the meal - one for the meal and one for seconds. Social services, clothing, information on medicare and medicaid, were right there along the side of the room as they took their seats at tables set up for ten. A little oasis - a safe place, good food, a place to meet friends or someone new or just find a spot for yourself. They knew people cared and they were recognized as a person.

submitted by Bill Stevens

Cooperatives Amidst the Privatization of

Asbury Park

Rev. Gil Caldwell recently commented on the scheduled Cooperative Asbury event at the Asbury Park Library on September 4th (Please see our 3rd issue for more information on Cooperate Asbury). He titled his e-mail: “Cooperatives amidst the privatization of Asbury Park” and wrote:

Colleagues,

As you meet, if would be interesting if you discuss/educate those attending re: a private beach club on a public boardwalk. Education can be as transforming as confrontation can be. There is a “slippery slope”: privatizing on the boardwalk, leads to privatizing the beach? Asbury Park “has been there and done that, racially.” Now, economically?

Although I am sidelined, people respond to my CR Movement history by reminding me that, “The more things change, the more things remain the same.” One person reminded me of that moment in Atlanta when Martin Luther King’s children asked him, why they could not go to an Amusement Park. He had to say, “Because it is racially segregated.”

What will the parents in Asbury Park say when their children ask:”Why can’t we go to that Beach Club on the boardwalk?” - “It is economically segregated.”

Gentrification in Southwest AP, economic segregation on the Boardwalk?

What will AP Historians of the future write about this moment in

AP history?

May the God of Justice, Bless you!

Rev Gil Caldwell

Did You Know

...that a recent award winning paper "Inequitable Gentrification" - a form of Exclusionary Zoning that Violates the New Jersey Constitution- by Ruby Kish,was recently published by Rutgers CLiMe [Center on Law, Inequality and Metropolitan Equity] on May 15, 2019. A MUST READ. The first section is about Asbury Park. To facilitate your reading this VERY READABLE PAPER, footnotes in this first section were deleted. CLICK HERE TO READ THIS FIRST SECTION The full paper with all the footnotes will grab your interest immediately. CLICK HERE TO READ FULL PAPER

...that October is Hispanic History Month and Charles Trout will have a month long exhibit on Afro Mexicans at the Asbury Public Library with a special presentation and discussion on Tuesday October 8th from 6-7 pm

in the Library. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION

...that Daniel Weeks, an assistant research professor at the Thomas A. Edison Papers at Rutgers University, wrote an extensive paper "From Riot to Revolt: Asbury Park in July, 1970" and updated it in the Summer of 2016. CLICK HERE TO READ

... of the Hispanic Cultural Events taking place in the Red Bank area during the month of October CLICK HERE TO READ

1619 A New York Times Audio Series

Four Hundred Years ago, a ship carrying enslaved Africans, arrived in the British Colony of Virginia. A New Times podcast examines the long shadow of that fateful moment.

A new Audio and Transcript of this series is available every Saturday

CLICK HERE Read or Listen to ALL episodes

All articles we print are the experiences and opinions of the authors. An editorial board reserves the right to make any changes they deem necessary to submitted articles that will keep The Asbury Voice from any liability. Authors will be informed of these changes to give them the opportunity to change or withdraw the writing.