"The Atlantic City Police Department has jurisdiction for the entire city.”
On a recent peace walk through some Atlantic City neighborhoods, I was reminded that our Chief of Police, Ernest Jubilee, is also an alumnus of the A.C.H.S. Class of 1972.
As Senior Class President, I’m always expected to address our class reunions so I thought it would be nice to sit down and chat with Chief Jubilee, a home-grown boy who rose through the ranks to become our city’s top law enforcement officer, before our 40th reunion earlier this month.
When we met, he was still the way I remember him — very smart and very kind.
The first thing I wanted to know was if Jubilee had planned this journey, dreamed of being a police officer as a boy, had a passion for fighting crime, rescuing people, that sort of thing.
Surprisingly, he had none of this. He had planned on going to college but was working part-time, delivering prescriptions for Lincoln Pharmacy.
Life has a way of taking us where we’re supposed to go, doesn’t it?
During our senior year of high school, the first police academy test was opened up to 18-year-olds and Jubilee took it more as an option, because he still planned on becoming a lawyer eventually.
At that time, A.C. had only four patrol cars per shift, two for the Northside and two for the Southside.
Imagine that! Black officers didn’t even cross Atlantic Avenue in the early '70s. Jubilee shared some not-so-funny stories about times when he and a fellow officer would show up to a call and people would ask, “Where are the real [i.e., white] officers?”
Once, school crossing guards actually refused to turn over their work schedules to him, as they routinely did, for delivery to City Hall.
Jubilee grew up in Bungalow Park with his mom and was part of that trailblazing group that came through the police academy at 18-19 years of age.
He had started taking classes at Atlantic Community College but stopped because his first assignment upon graduation from the academy was as an undercover narcotics agent. For two and a half years, he lived a rather clandestine life.
This is where Chief Jubilee said his passion really began to develop; in his youth, he didn’t realize how dangerous his work had been.
This year’s Multi-Cultural Heritage Festival weekend gave us an early start to what Mayor Langford anticipates as a great summer season.
"There are those that don’t believe the Atlantic City fathers are capable of handling this business. And again, that speaks to a level of arrogance and it also speaks to an underlying air of racism — point blank, as I’ve pointed out."
As in previous years, the Metropolitan Business & Citizens Association (MBCA) Winter luncheon kickoff event at Resorts in Atlantic City featured a keynote address — an unofficial state of the city address — by Atlantic City Mayor Lorenzo Langford.
The day after New Jersey Governor Chris Christie sent staffers to visit Atlantic City Mayor Langford, the mayor says he doesn't feel much different about the concerns he raised last week and that the ball is in the governor's court now.
"I get offended when the governor and others advocate that we need an increased police presence on the Boardwalk to create the ‘perception’ that the city is safe, because the reality is that the Boardwalk is safe. But even to address just the ‘perception’ [of the city’s tourists] they advocate more resources. What about the neighborhoods?"
On Friday, June 4, at 10am in the Atlantic City Convention Center, Langford and the committee chairpersons he appointed will present their recommendations to the public.
From Pop Lloyd to Pattie Harris to Nucky Johnson and the Northside, not to mention Nina Simone and Sam Cooke and other entertainers' connections to Atlantic City and region.
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.
Judge Nelson Johnson's latest book 'The Northside,' on Atlantic City's history of African-Americans, is missing key components says community leader. Johnson's previous book Boardwalk Empire was turned into the 2010 HBO series, the second season of which is filming now.
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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1. Anonymous said... on Sep 4, 2012 at 08:19AM
“another great interview with some one who deserves recognition.
so many of our local men and women are doing great jobs locall and aaaaaaround the country Jubilee is a fine example
thank you for choosing him”