Category: African Americans
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Connie Williams Woodruff
1921-1996 Connie Woodruff was a journalist, labor organizer and civic activist. Connie was City editor of the New Jersey Herald News by 1952. She also wrote “On the Scene in Jersey” for the New York Amsterdam News. She wrote a weekly column “As I See It” in City News. She was also active on Cablevision…
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Thelma Williams Gillis
1916-2003 Thelma Gillis was the first woman and first non-law school grad assistant chief of the municipal court clerks of the City of Newark. Featured in the Afro American in 1972 she said, “the courts are just overloaded these days!” and “I have taken 25 civil services exams in the last 10 years and intend…
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Kitty V. Kearney Taylor
1926-2008 Kitty Taylor was a senior citizen activist and radio host on WNJR with “The Kitty Taylor Show” and “Senior Citizens in Action”. She was named to the Mayor’s Senior Citizen Commission in 1963 by Addonizio and served as public relations for director for the Commission, and later as assistant director. She later served on…
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Pearl Beatty
1936-2019 Pearl Beatty was an Essex County freeholder (now county commissioner), who the New Jersey Globe called a “legendary veteran of Newark politics”. She said, “the only important tool an individual has is to vote.” President Giblin of the Essex Freeholders said she “lives, eats and breathes Essex County.” She was the sister of Alma…
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Dolores Collins Benjamin
1913-2007 Founded the North Jersey Philharmonic Glee Club. Founded in her Newark, N.J. home in 1939, the all-male African-American choral group is one of the nation’s longest continuously performing ensembles of its kind. Bibliography Obituary, News-Herald, December 14, 2007. Kukla, Barbara. Sounds of Music: The Dolores Collins Benjamin Story Kukla, Barbara. “Dolores Collins Benjamin Glee…
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Lillian B Huff Stewart
1909-2007 Social writer, social editor of the New Jersey Herald News in Newark. Reporter who covered all kinds of stories according to Robert Queen. He says she was working as a waitress when she began to write for the Herald. On the 1930 census she is listed (at age 23) as a private family nurse.…
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Loraine White
c. 1947 In 1980, Loraine White became a football coach at Weequahic High. She was New Jersey’s first female coach and was said to be the first Black woman to become a high school football coach in the United States. She has been inducted into the Newark Athletic Hall of Fame. Loraine (often misspelled Lorraine)…
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Sally (Sara) E. Cooke Young
1905-1967 Born and raised in Newark, Sally Young was an early Black journalist. Sally was a 1924 graduate of Central High who lived at 169 Norfolk St when she graduated Central. Her father Ambrose was listed on the census as a book author. She was the Daily News secretary at Central High. In 1941, she…