Hedgepeth-Williams v. Trenton was a victory for all New Jerseyans
Today, the City of Trenton will be honoring the 80th Anniversary of the momentous Hedgepeth-Williams v. Trenton Board of Education Supreme Court decision which ended school segregation in New Jersey in 1944 by unveiling a memorial plaque at the school formally known as Junior School #2. As a Trentonian who grew up just a few hundred feet from “Junior 2”, I cannot be prouder that our city will be forever memorializing the history that occurred there.
The importance of this decision to the future of our state and America cannot be understated. Without it occurring as it did, New Jersey would not have ended segregation in our public schools ten years before the famous Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court decision ended the that same scourge around the country. Additionally, NAACP Attorney Thurgood Marshall used the Hedgepeth-Williams v. Trenton decision as part of his arguments regarding Brown v. Board of Education.
For those who do not already know, two Trenton mothers, Gladys Hedgepeth and Berline Williams stood up and fought for their two young middle school students, Janet Hedgepeth and Leon Williams — after they were told that the children would have to walk 2.5 miles to the segregated and under-resourced New Lincoln School instead of their local, neighborhood school. Simply because they were black.
Instead of accepting this decision of education racism and segregation, Mrs. Hedgepeth and Mrs. Williams did not know each other previously but both decided to fight back. Both women were members of the NAACP and were represented by Robert Queen, an attorney and member of the local NAACP who played a major role in the 1932 desegregation of the swimming pool at Trenton Central High School. After the initial lawsuit was denied, the two moms and their attorney appealed the decision to the New Jersey Supreme Court, which decided to hear the case beginning in the fall of 1943.
When the NJSC made its decision in favor of Mrs. Hedgepeth and Mrs. Williams, NJ Supreme Court Justice Porter in his written opinion, “The sole question presented is the legal right of the respondent to refuse these children admission in the school nearest their residences. The only reason the admission sought is denied them is because of their race. We think it clear that the children
were unlawfully discriminated against. It is unlawful for Boards of Education to exclude children from any public school on the ground that they are of the negro race.”
Junior School #2 was ordered to admit both Janet Hedgepeth and Leon Williams right away and segregation could no longer be legally practiced in New Jersey’s public school systems.
All New Jerseyans, and certainly, all Mercer County residents, should know of how desegregating our state’s schools came about in the Garden State. American Civil Rights history did not only occur in the South during the terrible years of Jim Crow or in previous decades in other parts of the country. Eighty years is not a long period of time in the span of human history and we need to be aware of our own state’s history. Especially Civil Rights history and issues of segregation. Our family has been fortunate to visit the Woolworth’s in Greensboro, NC; the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama; the Desegregation memorial site at the University of Alabama; the beaches of the “Wade-Ins” in Biloxi, MS; among other notable places in Civil Rights history in our travels — so I am quite proud that we finally will have such a designated place here in Trenton.
Having grown up so close to Junior #2, before it was renamed as “Hedgepeth-Williams”, I was not aware of its great history until the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in 1994. My parents moved to Trenton in the late 50s to raise seven children in a little house on South Olden Avenue — and on the grounds of history, we played in that special school’s playground, rode bikes around its massive parking lot, and spent summers participating in the Department of Natural Resources summer programs.
Later, as adults, each of us also exercised our right to vote for the first time at Junior #2. I hope to see many New Jerseyans, not just Trentonians at the special 80th Anniversary Ceremony to celebrate a great victory for all New Jerseyans.