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Abigail Malmgreen
1909-2009 1926 Graduate of Barringer High. Worked at Bamberger’s Department Store and then for the Newark Welfare Department. Lifelong political activist. Member of the United Nations Association, Americans for Democratic Action, the NAACP, the Congress of Racial Equality, the Givat Haviva Educational Association and the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (now New Jersey…
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Connie Woodruff
1921-1996 Journalist, labor organizer, educator. City editor of the New Jersey Herald News. Also wrote On the Scene in Jersey for the New York Amsterdam News. Active in the NAACP and the Leaguers. Appointed by six governors to state commissions. Chairperson of the NJ Commission of the Status of Women. President of the National Association…
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Nancy Zak
1948- Community organizer for environmental justice and housing with Ironbound Community Corporation. Key figure in the HUD Tenants Coalition. Rutgers Gus Heningburg Fellow. Organized to save Riverbank Park in the Ironbound when it was threatened with demolition, and founded the park group SPARK Friends of Riverbank Park. Power 15 Award (Newarks’ Most Influential Grassroots Leaders).…
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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 of Dr. E. Alma Flagg. She lived in Newark from 1926 until her death. She retired from the courts in 1983. Bibliography…
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Esther K Untermann
1896-1989 First woman secretary of the Newark Civil Defense Council (1953-1962, gained international recognition, works produced for radio and TV) and first woman to be named a judge (police judge) in Essex County. Organized the first eight chapters of B’nai B’rith. Active on behalf of United Jewish Appeal and lifetime member of the Newark Beth…
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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 Senior Citizen Commission in 1963 by Addonizio and served on committees under Gibson and James. From 1976-1988 she was director of senior…
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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 Secretary of the Insurance Fund Commission by Gibson. Elected Freeholder for District 2 in 1978, the first woman elected in the district.…
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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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Dr. Meta Anderson
c. 1889-1942 Dr. Meta Anderson was the director of Special Education for the Newark Public Schools from 192 until 1942 when she was killed in an accident. She served in the Psychiatric Division during WWI and for the Industrial Department of Serbian Child Welfare after the war. She was the author of many scientific articles.…