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Edna Thomas

UCC Area Board #2, where Edna Thomas was an active member and served as Vice President. (Newark Public Library)

Edna R. Thomas was born in Newark on June 17, 1941 and went to Morton Street  and Robert Treat School before attending Arts High School. After she gave birth to her son, Thomas moved to an apartment on High Street (now MLK Blvd), where she lived next door to Central Ward Councilman Irvine I. Turner. While living next door, Thomas began answering the phone for Turner when she was unemployed. This proved to be an invaluable political experience for Thomas, who later said, “I began to meet a lot of politicians that would come in and out of his office and began to learn from them. That was very helpful to me.”

In 1965, the War on Poverty came to Newark and took shape as the United Community Corporation, Newark’s Community Action Agency. Before joining the UCC, Thomas worked at a toy factory– a job that paid $1.15 per hour, left her unemployed for half the year, and required her to collect welfare for subsistence. In addition to working and caring for her children, Thomas also served as the Vice President of the Scudder Homes Tenants Association. However, when she heard about the UCC, Thomas said, “I stood there with tears in my eyes and said I wasn’t coming back. I was going to do something better and that’s when I started volunteering for the anti-poverty program when he called for volunteers.”

In her time with the UCC, Thomas served on the Board of Trustees, along with a number of other roles, including Vice President of Area Board #2, Operation We Care, located at 415 Springfield Avenue. As a member of UCC, Thomas was actively involved in organizing around issues in public housing and education. In housing, she fought not only for badly needed low-income housing, but also to ensure that public housing projects were kept safe and sanitary for residents.

Thomas also fought for improved educational opportunities for the city’s children. Recalling efforts to have a curriculum specialist employed by the public school system, Thomas recalled, “I remember when we were sitting down in my living room– myself, Tim Still, Mary Smith, and Esta Williams. And we just sat there talking about what we don’t have. And before I knew it, the next day, we were on our way down to Addonizio’s office.” When asked what they were doing there, Thomas responded “We come because it’s about time!”

References:

Edna R. Thomas Interview, retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3G73GRN

Interview with Edna Thomas, Henry Hampton Collection, Washington University Libraries

Who’s Coming In, Who’s Going Out?

World War II kicked off the second Great Migration, as African Americans from the South sought better living conditions in Newark and other cities. Between 1940 and 1950, the African American population of Newark increased from 45,760 to 74,965—growing from 10.7% to 17.2% of the city’s total population. In many ways, this population influx marked a tipping point for recognition.

For most of Newark, the depression ended. “Help wanted “ signs went up. But African Americans could not always find a job. The New Jersey Afro-American wrote in 1941 that while contracts for nearly a billion and a half dollars in government defense orders have been placed with firms in New Jersey, the Urban League finds that these firms have steadfastly refused to hire colored workers.”

 

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“Help wanted “ signs went up. But African Americans could not always find a job.
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But some African Americans did find employment. Jobs for blacks in the Newark defense workforce improved from 4% in 1942, to 8.8% in 1943. With the overall economy booming, Newark’s downtown stores began hiring some African Americans as elevator operators and janitors. Large restaurants hired blacks as chefs, cooks and waiters—they could work, but not sit down to eat. The war years helped enhance the prospects of some, while still denying prosperity for the many.

Whites Begin to Leave

Around 1947, the white middle class started deserting Newark for the suburbs, along with the businesses that sustained them. The post World-War II boom was good for businesses for a while, but factories, schools, and streets had been neglected during the war. Overcrowding was a problem, especially in the ghettos. These conditions made the suburbs very attractive as alternatives to Newark.

The G.I. Bill of Rights and FHA loans made it easier for whites to buy a house, and brand new highways built by the federal government with taxpayers’ dollars made it easier to drive those new automobiles to the suburbs, in Essex County and further west. These same mortgages were unavailable to most African Americans; and most suburbs were off limits.

 

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These same mortgages were unavailable to most African Americans; and most suburbs were off limits.
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But Newark’s heterogeneous ethnic character remained intact in the early and mid-1950s. Newark was described as follows by writer Joseph Conforti:

The Germans had given way to the Irish who in 1950 shared political power with an Italian and a Jew. The ethnic division of the city could also be observed less directly. Many occupations were ethnically identifiable: the police and fire departments were overwhelmingly Irish; the construction trades were Italian; the merchants were largely Jewish, the small luncheonettes were Greek, the large businesses were owned and operated by WASPs, skilled craftsmen were likely to be German, and the factory operatives were Irish, Polish and Italian. Even the city’s taxicabs had ethnic identifications…yellow cabs were operated by the Irish, 20th Century cabs by Jews, Brown and White cabs by Italians, and Green cabs by blacks.

Newark’s Changing Demographics

Ghettoization continued in Newark. By 1940, the Third Ward (today’s Central Ward) alone contained more than 16,000 black residents. By 1944 nearly one third of the apartments and housing in the black areas were below the standards of minimum decency. Some houses still had outside bathrooms.

The slums were among the worst in the nation. The situation was particularly grim for African Americans, clustered on “the hill” just west of the Essex County Court House. Public Housing did not help a lot. There were 7 low-income projects finished before the war, but by 1946, there were 2,110 white families and only 623 black families in the buildings. Four of the projects housed no black people. The best low-rise public housing, such as Bradley Court, was reserved for whites; while the poorest units, such as F.D.R. Homes, were reserved for blacks. Ultimately, the majority of African Americans were steered into the growing number of high rise public housing which just happened to be built in the center city where black people had been confined beginning at the turn of the 20th century.

 

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Four of the projects housed no black people.
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The 1950 Census showed the trend in population increases for blacks, and decrease by whites. Newark’s total population rose only slightly from 429,760 in 1940 to 438,776 in 1950. Black residents had increased from 45,760 to 74,965—more than a 60% increase. When newspapers took a look at the faces of misery, increasingly they were black.

Even though the city began hemorrhaging jobs (250 manufacturers left between 1950-60; 1,300 manufactures left during the 1960s), the more dramatic change in the city’s socioeconomic structure was the rapidly changing composition of the city’s population.

African Americans were rapidly become politically and economically obsolete in a city where they would soon be in the majority. Segregation and discrimination by race and class defined Newark’s offering to the city’s newest immigrants.

Listen to the people speak about their experiences as newcomers to Newark below…

Thomas describes how “urban renewal” led her to become active in struggles for justice and equality in housing and education for Newark’s Black communities. — Credit: Henry Hampton Collection, Washington University Libraries

Model Cities Election Flyer

Model Cities Election Flyer

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Flyer for the Model Cities Neighborhood Council election on April 22, 1968. Edna Thomas was a community candidate in the election. — Credit: Junius Williams Collection

Edna Thomas describes the particular abuses that Black women suffered from Newark policemen. — Credit: Henry Hampton Collection, Washington University Libraries

Explore The Archives

African American Repairman

African American Repairman

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Photograph from the PSEG archives of an African American repairman at work. — Credit: PSEG

22 Clayton Street Stove

22 Clayton Street Stove

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A look inside the apartment of an African American family at 22 Clayton Street in Newark. — Credit: WPA Photographs, NJ State Archives

22 Clayton Street Bathroom

22 Clayton Street Bathroom

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A look inside the apartment of an African American family at 22 Clayton Street in Newark. — Credit: WPA Photographs, NJ State Archives

African American Stoker

African American Stoker

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Photograph from the PSEG archives of an African American stoker at work. — Credit: PSEG