Segregated School’s History on Exhibit

CAPE MAY – Eighty-one-year-old Emily Dempsey remembers her elementary school art teacher as “being mod before the mod look was in.” 
She remembers her kindergarten/first-grade teacher riding her bike to school, and she still stays in touch with her grade school music teacher, now 104 years old.
Dempsey, along with her mother, aunts, uncles and sister attended the Franklin Street School, now the focus of an exhibit entitled, “Franklin Street School: From Segregation to Unification.” The exhibit is presented by the Center for Community Arts (CCA) in association with the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts & Humanities Inc. (MAC).
The exhibit is open to the public through April 15 at the Carroll Gallery of the Carriage House, on the grounds of the Emlen Physick Estate, 1048 Washington St., Cape May. Admission is free.
Photographs, artifacts and recorded oral and video histories make up the exhibit which chronicles the history of the school.
It also highlights and illuminates African-American life and history in Cape May and the surrounding region, showing the initial efforts to preserve and rehabilitate the building and plans for the school’s expansion and completion.
From its opening in 1928, the Franklin Street School was a symbol of segregation and separation. It housed grades Kindergarten through eighth, after which students would then attend the integrated high school where Cape May City Hall is today, around the corner on Washington Street.
The school was a reminder of a racial divide, even after it was integrated in 1948, 78 years after blacks were given the right to vote under the 15th Amendment and 28 years after black women were given the right to vote under the 19th Amendment.
“In the late 1920s,” Dempsey recalled, “two-thirds of Cape May’s population was African American. Sixty-one businesses in town were owned by African Americans. Of course things were different then, but it was a natural thing to attend the segregated school.
“I’m not sure what drove people out,” she said reflecting on today’s environment, “but urban renewal didn’t help. Many of the buildings were deteriorated, but by today’s standards they would have been refurbished instead of torn down.”
The school building itself has seen about $700,000 in restoration and preservation work, according to CCA Executive Director David Mackenzie, since the organization took it over in 2002.
Funded through state and national historical preservation monies and various grants, the CCA has cleaned it up, stabilized the frame, structure, and roof, and replaced and repaired all its windows.
Although the inside of the building is gutted, the six-room interior remains virtually untouched.
The Center is working with the City of Cape May on further funding to rehabilitate the school to house a community cultural center and other activities still under discussion.
“We’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Mackenzie said, “with plans for its use almost determined. We’re providing (in the exhibit) a glimpse of a sample floor plan of what the building could be, depending on how it will be used.
“We are trying to be sensitive to the needs of the community,” he added, “looking at it not only as a stand-alone building but as integrated into the neighborhood. While our plans are still in flux, I’m more optimistic that we’re closer to making decisions working with the city.
“The process is moving as fast as it can,” admitted Mackenzie, who said he started with CCA in 1976 because of the school restoration project. “It’s what got me involved with CCA so it can’t move fast enough for me.”
Once decisions are made, plans established and funding secured, Mackenzie said there will be at least a nine-month construction period.
The exhibit is open to the public and free as follows: Feb. 10, noon-3 p.m.; Feb. 17, 11 a.m.-4 p.m.; Feb. 18, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.; Feb. 19, 1 p.m.-3 p.m.;  Feb. 24-March 17, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.; March 18, 1 p.m.-3 p.m. The exhibit is open daily, March 19-April 15; hours vary.
For information, call 609-884-7525 or access CCA’s website at http://www.centerforcommunityarts.org.
To contact Karen Knight, email kknight@cmcherald.com.