Atlantic City Northside Unsung Heroes letter by Audrey Hart — Miss Audrey — was read at recent Atlantic City Council Meeting. Here it is in its entirety.
The book, released late 2010 by NJ publisher Plexus.
Dateline: 3.18.11
Location: Atlantic City
This letter was presented by Atlantic City resident and founder/president of the Atlantic City Business & Citizens Association Audrey Hart at the Atlantic City Council Meeting on Feb. 23.
Miss Hart called to say "Geoff, you need to tell this story at acweekly.com."
Nobody's telling all the truth about what goes on here in town.
Here is the letter in its entirety.
Atlantic City Northside Unsung Heroes
I'd like to thank the Atlantic City, City Council and residents of Atlantic City for allowing me the opportunity and time to come before you.
I am here today for the record to state my case to the people of Atlantic City and the council in an effort to have you help me to find resolution to a matter that is important to me, the residents of Atlantic City in general and the Northside in particular.
My name is Audrey Hart often referred to, by the residents of Atlantic City as Miss Audrey, a title that was given to me by the residents of Atlantic City['s] Northside many years ago.
I left Hartford, England at age 21, as a master tailor and came to Margate, New Jersey, to work as a nanny for the Malamut Family.
I moved to the Atlantic City Northside and two years later married into the Anderson Family, who came from Virginia in the 1920's to live and work on the famous Atlantic City Kentucky Avenue.
Mr. Anderson was the only shoemaker on the Northside at the time. His wife, Thelma Anderson was a mid-wife that delivered all the babies on the Northside and was the first black registered nurse to work in the Atlantic City Medical Center in the 1950's.
My husband Skip Anderson was a local black activist and historian who was born on Kentucky Avenue and we lived and worked from 1962-1992.
During that time we interacted with every resident and entertainer that ever graced Kentucky Avenue and I was so fascinated with the stories and history of the black Northside, that in 1964 I began collecting pictures, photos, stories, and memorabilia on the people of the Northside.
When I first moved on Kentucky Avenue in the 1960's I became close friends with Naomi and Pop Williams, as well as Ben [Alten] who were the owners of the Club Harlem.
Long before the famous Club Harlem was torn down in 1993, Ben [Alten] allowed me to take many of the original photographs that had been showcased for years on the club walls, to add to my collection.
By that time I had such an extensive collection, that I began to encourage and support others who an interest in preserving our history and telling our stories of the Northside.
I supported Willie Gainor's Club Harlem Museum, encouraged Sid Trusty to move his pictures and photo collection out of his garage, supported Ralph Hunter's efforts to showcase his small collection, placed a number of my pictures (copies) on loan to the Atlantic City Library, to be locked into the Heston Room and to be used only with written permission by me.
I further supported and loaned copies of my photos to the author Vicki Gold-Levi, who wrote a book on Atlantic City. I allowed a number of my pictures and photos to be used in the broadway play "Having Our Say" the story of the 100-year-old Delaney Twin Sisters [sic].
I took on the responsibility of trying to save this magnificent history, because I believed that one day, when the Northside no longer existed, that there would be proof and a recorded history of its existence.
Placed in charge of Atlantic City’s two “colored” schools by 1921, Pennsylvania native Brock succumbed the following year at the age of 42, in the thick of a battle over whether or not to integrate the local schools.
A list of Black History Month related events in the Atlantic City region.
If you’ve never been to the Civil Rights Garden in Atlantic City, you should make it a point to drop by there and sit awhile. It is a contemplative place.
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There was a reason why I dedicated my book, Growing Up in the Other Atlantic City: Wash’s and the Northside, to all the families in Atlantic City, in addition to my own grandparents and children — I knew they had similar stories to tell.
With the current focus on non-gaming, family-friendly and cultural attractions in Atlantic City's future, here are some of the reasons why Ralph Hunter and the AAHMSNJ should have a home in Atlantic City:
It’s been very weird. When I decided to self-publish my book in Dec. 2009, I did it because an agent in New York told me — and this is pre-Obama — that nobody’s interested in black history now. I said, ‘What?’ And she said, ‘Nobody is interested. That’s just the truth.’ Then, I think it was in April, HBO calls me.
As the late Atlantic City historian and former Club Harlem house band drummer Sid Trusty once said, "Every night was our party. And we invited the world." The party may be starting up again soon.
It was a windy and rainy mid-September night for the Atlantic City premiere of the much anticipated new HBO series Boardwalk Empire. Regional storms pounded the beach and Boardwalk with crashing ocean waves and assaulting wind gusts. We're talking not only hold onto your hat, but everything else, too.
DEAR MAYOR LANGFORD, It is impossible for me to reflect upon your time in office without thinking about your life before you were mayor. A lot of people don't know that when we saw each other in the ...
His white hair tufted beyond tolerance, the minister stepped into the barbershop and its buzz of bonhomie. Combs raked scalps, scissors snipped furiously, and the scent of lilac water suffused the air. Twenty minutes later, the clergyman stood from the pedestal-chair and surveyed his reshaped dome. The dark skin of his forehead glistened below the white fringe. He paid the barber and paused on the black rubber mat. “Am I good for another dime?” The barber grinned. “You bet.” And so he did — 10 cents on number 357, a wager to be rewarded only if the digits corresponded, respectively, to the last number on each of the day’s win-place-show handles at Aqueduct Racetrack, some 90 miles to the north. The “numbers,” or “policy,” game was a lottery before lotteries were legal. Nearly everyone in town played it even...
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to Stockton
1. Anonymous said... on Mar 20, 2011 at 08:12PM
“that would be Ben Alten, not Altman”