The West End Community Center served as the social and cultural hub for Moorestown’s once segregated West End neighborhood.
The Historical Society of Moorestown has updated the public on the ongoing West End Center Oral History Project.
The project began in 2022 after Lenny Wagner, president of the society, connected with township native Richard Gray through Deputy Mayor Quinton Law.
“Richard’s dream was to capture as much of the history of the (center) as possible, and it turned out that he had come to the right place, as we had a large collection of documents related to the West End Community Center that had been donated to us a number of years earlier,” Wagner explained at a Dec. 3 meeting.
“There was an additional group of documents here at the library,” he added. “While the existence of these two collections of documents gave us a good head start, they were of little value to anyone seeking to learn more about the history of the West End Center.”
Those documents were not readily available and even if they were, they were not searchable, Wagner noted. To capture the history of the center, the historical society would need funding. Earlier this year, the New Jersey Historical Commission board awarded $25,000 to the oral history project through the commission’s Inclusive History Grant Program, set up to fund the exploration of under-represented narratives with a goal of “expanding inclusive, community-centered interpretations” offered by historic sites throughout the state.
The project, conceived by Gray, will gather oral histories, photographs and other artifacts associated with the gathering place in the west end of town that served the African American community in the days when the Community House of Moorestown was restricted to white residents. Besides Gray and Wagner, the project team consists of Nadine Baldasare and Shannon Reilly, along with David Sullivan, Jill Weiss and Cathy Hartley of the historical society.
The team’s successful grant application had three components: to scan and index all documents related to the West End Community Center; conduct oral histories of individuals directly connected to it; and last but not least, foster greater community engagement with the historical society while conducting meetings such as the Dec. 3 session.
“We’re in a period of time where our history is something that people try to forget,” Gray observed, “and if you’re trying to forget history, then you’re really not learning from it and you’re probably afraid to learn from it … You can’t know who you are without knowing where you came from, which is why I think it’s important for us now to not only document that history, but to get that history out of our basements and out of our attics, which is why I’m so glad that people have brought pictures here to be able for us to share, to begin to document that history.
“This is not the project on the West End,” he added, “this is a project … The whole idea is not that this become the project, but that it creates a practice – a ritual – of us doing these kinds of projects.”
The West End Community Center served its segregated neighborhood from 1944 to 1968. Originated and managed by Black men and women, it was a space where residents could celebrate and create programs to build strong community relationships in the face of discriminatory policy in the township.
The center was destroyed sometime in the 1960s and its site is now home to Yancy Adams Park. The pocket park is dedicated to Roxanna Yancy and James Adams, who were instrumental in the establishment and successful operation of the West End Community Center.
All scanned documents related to the center that the historical society has will eventually be available on its website. To see that information shared with other websites, contact the historical society at (856) 235-0353 or email moorestownhistory@comcast.net.
