Category: 1930-1959 (Born)
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Geneva Streeter
1943- Geneva Streeter (Wardell, Campbell) was the first Black “Queen of Rutgers-Newark” campus and her modeling career at Rutgers put her in national magazines. After college, she became a Newark teacher and principal for many years. Geneva Streeter grew up in Newark living at 156 Livingston St in 1950. She graduated West Side High, class…
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Vickie Donaldson
c. 1949 – Vickie Donaldson was a leader of the Black Organization of students during the takeover of Conklin Hall in 1969, and joined the Board of Education at age 23. Later, she became the first woman to be General Counsel of the Newark Board of Education and served as Director of Homeless Services for…
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Barbara Bell Coleman
1949- Barbara Bell Coleman is President of BBC Associates and a board member of the merged MCJ Amelior Foundation, Schumann Fund for New Jersey and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. She is co-founder and trustee emeritus of the Branch Brook Park Alliance, which she helped found in 1999. Barbara has served as CEO / Executive…
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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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Mary Sue Sweeney Price
1951- Mary Sue Sweeney Price was the director of the Newark Museum from 1993 to 2013. When she retired she was called, “inspirational, insightful, a keen politician, a cultural warrior” and “the grand dame of our arts community.” Mary Sue started working at the Museum in 1975 as supervisor in the public relations office, appearing…
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Mariazinha (Maria) Coutinho
c. 1946- Maria Coutunho was born in Portugal and settled in Newark in the 1960s. In the early 1970s, her and her husband established Coutinho’s Bakery, which spread to multiple storefronts in Newark and Harrison. A 1995 profile stated she supervised every cake before it left Newark and sat down with every client. The bakery…
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Rosalind Lubetsky Bressler
1936-2001 Rosalind Bressler was the first woman to be corporation counsel (the chief attorney) for the City of Newark, when she was sworn in, Oct 1984. Previously she’d been assistant corporation counsel from 1975. As assistant corporation counsel she focused on labor and employment issues, and contracts, and also worked with many different departments in…