Highlighting Black History in Monmouth During BHM

By Margie Donlon and Luanne Peterpaul

Each February, as we celebrate the contributions of Black Americans to our nation’s history, we are reminded of many examples of Monmouth County’s significance in their stories.

Assemblywomen Luanne Peterpaul and Margie Donlon

Our Annual LD11 Black History Celebration will be held Feb. 25, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., at VFW Post 1333 in Neptune. Rev. Derrick Green, founder of the Interfaith Action Movement and the recipient of numerous civil rights awards, will be the keynote speaker. We will announce the honorees and additional details on social media and on our legislative blogs, senatorgopal.com and donlonpeterpaul.com, in the days ahead.

We had the honor of joining the Continental Societies North Jersey Shore Chapter last week for their 2026 Annual Gospel Breakfast in Eatontown to celebrate their Student Community Service Award recipients. We are looking forward to joining Asbury Park’s 24th annual Black History Month Celebration on Feb. 19.

Black history is American history. That is evident to us each year when we visit the places in Monmouth County and our Legislative District 11 that are on the New Jersey Black Heritage Trail and the Monmouth County Black History Trail. We find these sites to be an informative and moving experience. From the Samuel “Mingo Jack” Johnson memorial in Eatontown marking the site of the wrongful hanging of Johnson by a mob in 1886, to the former Monmouth University gym where Martin Luther King Jr. spoke in 1966, Monmouth County is home to many landmarks that tell the African American story in New Jersey and America.

Asbury Park is a great place to start.

We are proud to have garnered funds in past state budgets to support the rehabilitation of the Turf Club at 1200 Springwood Ave. in Asbury Park. This is the place where music legends including Count Basie, Billie Holiday and Clarence Clemons drew crowds in the 1940s through the 1960s. Just a few blocks away you can visit the West Side Community Center at 115 Dewitt Ave. The center of the Black community in the decades after its founding in 1942 at the home of Dr. William Parks, the building is being restored.

Here’s a look at a few more of the sites along the Black History Trail in LD11 towns.

Overlook by the Falls is a burial ground for enslaved African-Americans that worked at Tinton Manor Ironworks in the 1670s. Located on Tinton Avenue in Tinton Falls, the site honors the 60 slaves from Barbados who worked there and made up the largest pocket of slaves in New York or New Jersey for decades.

The T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center in Red Bank, formerly known as Maple Hall, bears the name of a former slave. He became an influential newspaper publisher and entertained Booker T. Washington and other prominent African Americans as he advocated for civil rights.

Neighboring Fair Haven is home to Fisk Chapel, now known as Bicentennial Hall. It was built as an African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1882 with a $3,000 donation by Union Army general Clinton Fisk. For decades after it opened, the chapel was the site of an annual public reading of the Emancipation Proclamation.

The Court Street School in Freehold opened in 1915 as a segregated school for Black students until it became an air raid shelter during World War II. Integrated by a court order and reopened in 1949 as an elementary school, it closed 15 years later and was reborn as a nonprofit community center in 1990.

These sites remind us of our shared history and our shared investment in democracy. If you’re interested in more Monmouth County history, visit monmouthtimeline.org/trail/black-history-trail/ you will learn more about the Monmouth County Black History Trail and make sure to plan a few trips to explore our county’s rich historical past.

We hope to see you along the Trail.