Category: Born or raised in Newark (high school or before)
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Dr. Evelyn Boyden Darrell
1923-2016 Evelyn Boyden Darrell was a Newark Black journalist, writing a national column for the Afro, and later the first Black woman psychologist at Bellevue Hospital in NYC. Evelyn Boyden was born in Newark in 1923 and graduated with the West Side High class of 1940. She lived on South 13th Street and Bruce Street…
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Betty Harris Neals
1934- Betty Neals is a nationally-recognized poet, who has performed in Newark, New Jersey and nationally, who also had a 37-year teaching career in East Orange. In 1975, she was featured in New York City’s Black History Week and the New York Amsterdam News called her a “Newark born writer” who “is also a beautiful…
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Kathleen P. Galop
1946-2024 Kathleen Galop was an attorney who was instrumental in preserving Branch Brook Park and founding the Cherry Blossom Festival. She served on the Essex County Parks Advisory Council and later became County Executive Historic Preservation Officer and Acting Director of the Division of Cultural and Historic Affairs. She was president of the New Jersey…
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Anna W. Hilton Monroe
1878-1973 Anna Monroe was active in Black social and civic organizations in Newark for many years. She was a founding member of the Urban League, president of the Newark Branch of the NAACP, and financial chairman for the Sojourner Truth Branch of the YWCA and the NJ State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs. Price’s Freedom…
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Gloria Waldron Butler
1931 – 1998 Gloria Butler was a political activist in the Central Ward. She became involved in local politics in the 1950s from friendships with Irvine Turner and Timothy Still, among others. She was a Democratic committeewoman and district leader, for many years in Hayes Home and “a fixture at the polls, working tirelessly to…
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Constance Hedden Schotland
1906-1997Constance Hedden was a Board of Education member, teacher and active in civic groups. Born in Newark on James Street, Constance Hedden graduated from Barringer High in 1924 and then Dennison University, and Montclair State Teachers College, where she received a Masters in Education in 1933. She took other teaching courses at Columbia, NYU and…
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Ella Van Steenburgh
c. 1871 – 1958 Ella Van Steenburgh was a registered nurse, who ran a successful Nurse’s Home and registry business for over 40 years. In 1906, Ella graduated from Newark City Hospital School of Nursing: Class Photo here from Newark Library. She began working a hospital nurse, however, in 1908 she acquired spinal meningitis and…
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Ame Amelia Garrison
c. 1909 – 1997 Amelia Garrison was a swing-era saxophonist who travelled widely playing with bands, also leading NJ’s only female orchestra as of 1938, according to the New Jersey Herald News, Ame Garrison’s Sirens of Swing. During her career she said, “usually I was the only female sax player they had ever worked with.”…