Category: African Americans
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Thelma Gillis
1916-2003 First woman and first non-law school grad assistant chief of the municipal court clerks of the City of Newark. Named in 1971, deputy municipal court clerk in 1965. She was the sister…
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Kitty (Kearney) V. Taylor
1926-2008 Attended Charlton Street School and South Side High. 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…
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Pearl Beatty
1936-2019 Active in the Urban League, NACCP, organizing for JFK and the March on Washington. Attended Morton St. School and Arts High. Exec secretary / office manager for COPE. In 1970, appointed Executive…
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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.…
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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…
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Loraine White
c. 1947 In 1980, said to be the first Black woman to become a high school football coach in the United States. In the Newark Athletic Hall of Fame. NJ’s first female assistant…
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Sally (Sara) E. Cooke Young
1905-1967 Born and raised in Newark. 1924 graduate of Central High. Lived at 169 Norfolk St when she graduated Central. Her father Ambrose was listed on the census as a book author. She…
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Diane Sutton
1941-2001 Co-owned Je’s Restaurant. The first restaurant in Downtown Newark founded by people of color. Mayor Sharpe James called her “the heart and soul of downtown Newark”. Photo from Newark NJ Memories. Bibliography…