Activist James E. Johnson addresses the Monroe Township Community Affairs’ Black History Month Reflection and Celebration on Feb. 9. His books on African American history in the area include “Black Biographies of the Lower Delaware Valley: Antebellum to the Great Migration.”
Monroe Township reflected on and celebrated Black history on Feb. 9 at the Pfeiffer Community Center.
The township’s Community Affairs department hosted the event, which included local historian, educator and activist Dr. James E. Johnson as its speaker. Active in civil rights or more than 50 years, Johnson has written books on Black history in the area, including “Black Biographies of the Lower Delaware Valley: Antebellum to the Great Migration.”
“When I talk about 55 years ago being my initial foray into social activism, that came with a fortified kind of framework anyway,” he explained. “I graduated high school in 1966 in Philadelphia at (Thomas) Edison High School in North Philadelphia. And if anybody knows the history of that school, you know I’m anti-war.”
Johnson was referring to the fact that 64 of his fellow students at Edison died in the Vietnam War, the highest number of losses at an American high school. Known as the Edison 64, the men were graduates of the school from 1965 to 1971. Johnson himself was a Merchant Marine who delivered supplies to soldiers in Vietnam.
“All that experience certainly embedded in me the idea that peace is really the thing that helps mankind move forward, not war,” he noted.
Johnson’s war service and his parents’ membership in the NAACP inspired him to help others. He joined the Camden County Tenant United Front in 1972 to help improve housing conditions in Paulsboro. When he moved to Clayton in the early ’90s, it was being hit hard by the crack epidemic. That inspired Johnson to form Concerned Citizens of Delsea Estates to better the community.
“We had tutoring centers,” Johnson recalled. “We had organized with the police department, Acme stores, the mayor. We had St. Paul Baptist Church. We had a collective kind of effort to reinvigorate our community.”
Monroe school board member Quandell Iglesia also addressed the Black History event, reflecting on the people who motivated him and the community that shaped him when he had personal struggles.
“Growing up, I’ll be honest, I actually struggled academically,” he remembered. “I didn’t always feel supported. I didn’t always feel seen. When I graduated, I didn’t feel prepared for the workforce or prepared for what to do after high school. I feel like I didn’t have a clear direction of what to do, how to do it.
“Looking back, I’m grateful because that became my purpose,” Iglesia added, “to figure out what I’m passionate about and what I do love and what wakes me up and keeps me going. I am in business development and real estate entitlement. I help individuals and families build stability through homeownership.”
The community center was decorated with the colors of red, black, green and yellow associated with Black History Month, and photos of former president Barack Obama, activist Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. were prominently displayed.
“It’s not just about the mayor and town council,” observed Mayor Greg Wolfe. “We come together as a community, and it is the school district that has to be here. It is our police department. It’s so many different branches. We have an opioid task force that I had started just a couple years ago, and we have buy-in from the school district.
“We have buy-in from the police department, we have buy-in from our town council, our county supports our services,” he added. “So again, it’s that community atmosphere and we all have to work together for our community.”
