CCA Releases CM’s First Black History Book

CAPE MAY – The Community History Committee at the Center for Community Arts has announced the publication of its book, “Black Voices of Cape May: A Feeling of Community,” released Dec. 1.
For 25 years, committee members and other volunteers interviewed people from the African American community on Cape Island and collected over 60 oral histories.
“I think the book is contemporary history,” CCA Executive Director David McKenzie said. “It doesn’t go back into the 19^th century – it’s 20^th century history.”
McKenzie said that is, in part, because it is an oral history begun in the late 1990s, and those speaking could only give 20^th century history.
Hope Gaines, who is part of the history committee and one who recorded oral interviews with local Black citizens, said, “History was being lost and we wanted to save it.”
Gaines and McKenzie said there is no catastrophic or dynamic occurrence that prompted the creation of the book – it is simply the story of how people lived in the Cape Island community.
“When you read this, it is that these were just people leading their lives,” Gaines said. “It’s how they worked, how they spent their recreation time, going to the beach, the businesses served the tourist industry – how they served everyone – not segregated.”
Not to say there was no segregation. The Franklin Street School, which was a black only school, stands as a testament to segregation.
Gaines said it was an extremely interesting process extending over 25 years and involving a widely varied group of people. Most have come and gone over the 25 years, but current contributors include Hope Gaines, Rachel Dolhanczyk, who is the director of community history projects, Yvonne Wright Gary, Barbara Dreyfuss, Emily Dempsey, and Wanda Wise Evelyn.
“These are the current members, but many people interviewed many people over the years,” Gaines said.
One is Emily Dempsey, known as “Miss Emily,” to many people in the area. Dempsey was not only one of the original members of the history committee but is also a “founding mother” of CCA.
Gaines said some of the notable figures in the community, including Cordelia Howard Bounds, who was a teacher at the Franklin Street School, who lived to be 104. There is the Rev. Robert O. Davis, longtime pastor of Macedonia Baptist Church on Lafayette Street. There is Emily Moore, whose father was William Moore, another teacher at the segregated school
Gaines said John Nash was kind of the official historian of Cape May. He attended the Franklin Street School, and he is talked about in a chapter on business.
“His family had trash collection business, so he knew everyone in town,” Gaines said.
James Washington was a star athlete who became president of the Cape May Kiwanis Club and was a member of the Lower Cape May Regional School Board.
Then there is Jack Vasser, who was the mayor of West Cape May for 20 or more years.
“Again, it’s about the lives people led. They went to work, married, had children, when to church, went to war, went to the beach, and just lived as people do,” Gaines said.
McKenzie said CCA started out as documenting the Franklin Street School so it could be saved.
“It got so interesting we kept going and said this could be a book,” Gaines added. “And it’s the first thing like it.”
The contributors did research to add context to what people were saying, but essentially would ask people questions, such as, “What was it like to attend the Franklin Street School?” and let them talk.
After all the interviews were completed, and having been touched by so many authors, they turned the book over to Susan Tischler for editing in order to make it more cohesive.
The first chapter of the book deals with the family tree of Black history in Cape May County. Wanda Wise Evelyn did a lot of the work on that family tree, considering her own family goes back six or seven generations.
One of the chapters deals with Black-owned businesses on Cape Island. The chapter highlights such details as the municipal parking lot on Jackson Street once being the home to a number of black-owned businesses, including stores, restaurants and rooming houses. There was also a billiard hall, a beauty salon, as well as a couple of dry cleaners on Washington Street.  
“Most of the Black-owned businesses were on Jackson and Lafayette streets,” Gaines said. “And they were not officially segregated.”
She said for the most part the story of race relations on Cape Island are a story of good relations, despite their being at least one cross burning in the community. She said there were some incidents, and the beaches became de facto segregated, saying the Grant Street beach was closer to where most of the Black community members lived. Still, Gaines said, if a Black person wandered up the beach there was a chance they might be invited off.
McKenzie said the book is being self-published by CCA through Amazon, on whose website the book is available. Black Voices of Cape May: A Feeling of Community, is available for $25 with the proceeds going to CCA.