By JOHN T. WARD

Three Red Bank council members wore hooded garments to Wednesday night’s bimonthly meeting as a local group put out word of a silent vigil next week in memory of slain Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.

A poster for the event, called “We Are Trayvon Martin,” encourages attendees to wear hoodies, the type of sweatshirt that Martin was wearing when he was killed in an encounter with a gun-toting resident of Sanford, Florida a month ago.

Councilwoman Sharon Lee, in a vivid blue hoodie from the Unversity of North Carolina, where her son attends school, tells redbankgreen she wore the garment on the council dais in solidarity with others to call attention to the stigmatization of African-American youth.

“I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have one. We put our children out in them,” she said. “But if it’s that much of a problem, then we do need to desensitize people by letting them see them all the time.

“They’re just material things,” she said. “They’re not the substance of the person wearing them.”

Councilmembers Ed Zipprich and Juanita Lewis also wore lightweight sweaters with hoods to the meeting.

Organized by IMPACT, a youth advocacy group created by Red Bank native Darnell Lewis, the vigil is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday at the pocket park at the corner of Shrewsbury Avenue and Drs. James Parker Boulevard.

“Community members will peacefully assemble and stand silently together in his remembrance and raise awareness on the national issue of stereotyping and injustices against African-American young men,” a press release for the event says.

By DUSTIN RACIOPPI

The Red Bank Human Relations Committee must’ve thought it had all its bases covered when it drafted a diversity statement and sent it along to the borough council for adoption last week.

But even though it was a “wonderful gesture,” said resident Stephen Mitchell, the statement, which highlights the borough’s acceptance of diversity, was missing one contingent to make it fully embracing: non-believers.

Mitchell, an atheist, pointed out that 15 percent of Americans are religious non-believers, and thus the statement should reflect that.

So the council amended the statement to include the group.

Now it reads, with the amendment in bold:

Diversity, when it is accepted and respected, is a tremendous strength and asset for any community. It encompasses an understanding that each individual is unique and valuable to the welfare of the community. It recognizes and celebrates the differences amongst individuals, and capitalizes on the strengths resulting from these differences. Diversity works best when a community explores these differences in a safe, positive, and nurturing environment. The Human Relations Advisory Committee of Red Bank, NJ, in an effort to set an example for inclusivity, adopts the broadest definition of diversity with the following statement: The dimensions of diversity shall include, but are not limited to the following: race, ethnicity, persons of faith and non-believers, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, disability, socioeconomic status, cultural orientation, physical abilities, political beliefs, age, and national origin and status.

Simple enough. And now, with the adoption of the statement, Red Bank has on the books a document that Mayor Pasquale Menna called a “no-brainer” and, along with the pending completion by council members of a diversity survey, helps earn the borough points in the Sustainable Jersey program.

When the council was first asked to review the statement in April, Menna said “Diversity has been our credo forever, since Moses came down from the mountain. We haven’t deviated from that at all.”

Red Bank's governing body recently honored what Mayor Pasquale Menna called "one of our anchor institutions," the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The occasion was the passage of a resolution by the borough council noting this year's hundredth anniversary of the national organization.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," chapter President Henry P. Davis told Menna at a borough hall ceremony, quoting from the Declaration of Independence.

"We think we're moving in that direction, because the 44th president of the United States is an African-American," Davis said.

Here's the council resolution: Download 09-143

The Red Bank chapter meets on the fourth Thursday of every month at the Calvary Baptist Church on Bridge Avenue.

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‘The Laramie Project‘ is back in Monmouth County — minus, so far, any hint of the outrage that made it a hot topic last year in Ocean Township.

That’s when the high school principal and the district superintendent tried putting the kibbosh on a planned production as potentially offensive to playgoers.

But the play about the 1998 murder of Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard because of his homosexuality went on, minus some expletives. It also nabbed the ‘Basie’ award for Outstanding Dramatic Production among high school plays last May from the Count Basie Theatre Foundation.

Starting tomorrow night, the Visual and Performing Arts Academy at Red Bank Regional High School will stage a production of the play to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the events that inspired it.

Performances are scheduled for Friday and Saturday at 7:30p, with a matinee performance at 2p on Sunday, the anniversary of Shepard’s death. Tickets are priced at $10 for adults and $8 for senior citizens and students. Proceeds will be donated to the Matthew Shepard Foundation and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

A candlelight vigil for Shepard is scheduled for 7p Sunday at the Paramount on the Boardwalk in Asbury Park.

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Last time we wrote about Red Bank’s new inclusive community sign, in June, it set off quite a barrage of adverse commentary.

Critics called it ugly and unnecessary, an example of political correctness run amok. A member of the Human Relations Committee, which procured the sign at no cost, defended it as “an overt declaration to all who enter our fair Borough of the pride we feel in our community.”

Well, here we are again, to report that on Friday, the sign will be dedicated at Veteran’s Park, the tiny triangle at West Front Street and Riverside Avenue.

It’ll be interesting to see who shows up at the 10a event, and whether any of them will be objectors.

Here’s the press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Patricia Whyte, Chair
Human Relations Advisory Committee of Red Bank
90 Monmouth St.
Red Bank NJ 07701
#732-219-6901

(August 6, 2008) – On Friday, August 22 at 10AM the Human Relations
Advisory Committee of Red Bank will formally dedicate the Inclusive
Communities sign welcoming visitors to Red Bank. The sign, which can be
seen at the intersection of Riverside Ave. (Rte. 35 south) and W. Front
St., was installed this past spring.

In 2007, on the recommendation of the Human Relations Advisory
Committee, Red Bank joined the Partnership for Working Toward Inclusive
Communities. The Partnership is an initiative sponsored by the National
League of Cities, which provided the sign free of charge to the borough.

According to James C. Hunt, immediate past President of the NLC, “The
National League of Cities and its members have worked together for over
12 years to promote equality and bring attention to issues of diversity
and race relations. Yet, there is still much more to be done. We are
building upon the work of previous leaders, raising awareness and
focusing attention on the value of inclusive communities for all.

“Together as local government officials, concerned citizens,
business leaders and youth, the Partnership for Working Toward
Inclusive Communities can weave a creative, continuing, and sustainable
partnership. The message is simple: embrace the power of “We” and make
everyone feel welcome.”

More information can be found on the NLC website: www.nlc.org

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A welcome sign that the Red Bank Human Relations Committee bought got for free earlier this year to promote community togetherness has been posted at Veteran’s Park, the triangle at Riverside Avenue and West Front Street.

We’re not sure if this is a sign of widespread weirded-outness, but two redbankgreen readers who wrote in last week to tell us the sign was up both sensed something odd about it.

Said Alicia Woods:

It sounds like an ad for a gated community…or an apartment complex……anybody else think it is strange, or am I the only one?

Well, no, in fact. When told what Alicia had said, Jim Willis (who had also written in to tell us he’s just noticed it) replied:

It did feel a little like I was entering some weird kind of government-sponsored ‘don’t ask-don’t tell’ zone.

Does anyone else detect a ‘stay tuned for utopia’ vibe? Or is it perfectly sensible and appropriate? As always, we welcome comments.

The Human Relations Committee next meets at 6p on Wednesday, June 25 in the council chamber.

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Undaunted by sprinkles and a brief downpour, students from the Red Bank Regional High School chapter of STAND held a vigil in Marine Park last night to mourn the rapes, displacements and killings of millions of Darfurians in what the United States government calls genocide in Sudan.

Students read poems and sang songs they wrote about the victims and later lit candles to commemorate their suffering.

(Photos enlarge at a click.)

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About 150 people gathered Wednesday evening at the River Street Commons for a Black History Month event with unmistakable local ties.

Framed by depictions of African-American life in the mass media, the event focused on the life and work of T. (Timothy) Thomas Fortune, a pioneering African-American journalist who was born a a slave and lived on what is now Drs. James Parker Boulevard. Preservationists are hoping to save the house.

Claire Serant, a journalism professor at St. John’s University who has spent hundreds of hours at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem researching Fortune’s work, spoke at the event about his envelope-pushing achievements and writings. He championed the rights of blacks, she said, but also wrote about discrimination against Jews and the lynching of 11 Italians in the American south, without a trial, for the killing of a police chief.

“People says Thomas Fortune was a militant,” Serant told the audience. “He was, but he was really a humanist.”

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Today’s Sunday Star-Ledger has an extensive piece about the black activist journalist T. (Timothy) Thomas Fortune and the effort to save his longtime Red Bank home from the wrecking ball — or, as the article’s author puts it, “from predatory developers.”

The story’s not online; so far, it appears only in the print version’s Perspective section.

Authored by Claire Serant, a journalism professor at St. John’s University, the article notes that Fortune was born a slave in 1856, wrote for the white-owned New York Sun — “which was no small feat in the late 1800s” — and helped found a predecessor organization to the NAACP.

He also founded three national newspapers. One of them, the New York Age, “was the most widely read black newspaper of the era,” Serant writes. And he used the term “Afro-Americans” to denote black people at the time when ‘colored’ and ‘Negro’ were the standards.

From the story:

The periodicals urged African-Americans to agitate for change and equality in the United States and around the world. Fortune co-founded the National African-American League in 1890 and suggested the phrase ‘Afro-American’ to explain that blacks should be proud of being from Africa and being American citizens.

The house, on Drs. James Parker Boulevard, was designated last year as one of New Jersey’s 10 most endangered historic sites by Preservation New Jersey. It’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Quoted on the effort to preserve the house are Councilwoman Sharon Lee; Historic Preservation Commission chairman George Bowden; and Gilda Rogers, who runs The Source outreach program at Red Bank Regional High.

Rogers, the story says, “plans to encourage students to start a petition drive to save Fortune’s house. Signatures will be taken to Trenton lawmakers.”

Fortune lived in the house from 1901 until 1911, when it was sold in a sheriff’s sale. he died in 1928 in Philadelphia.

The article notes that the Hub’s Sarah Klepner is working with the commission on an exhibit of Fortune’s writings for a Black History Month event. The books and editorials will be on display Feb. 27 at the River Street Commons, 49 Catherine Street, from 6 to 9p.

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Today’s Star-Ledger reports that a fundraising organization at Red Bank Catholic has lost direct contact with a small school in the vast Kenyan slum of Kibera amid the internecine carnage that has gripped Nairobi for the past six weeks.

Through an Associated Press reporter, members of the Maryknoll Society at RBC have learned that the crude nursery school they’ve been supporting for the past four years is still intact. But the last email received from lay missionary Vikki Smith “was a lengthy and horrifying description of the riots and their casualties — stories of mass graves, the rape of women and children and the burning of families in their homes,” the Ledger’s Maryann Spoto reports.

More from the article:

With no word from the missionaries in a week, members of Red Bank Catholic’s Maryknoll Club were getting a stark lesson in global unrest, wondering if their sister school had been lost to the violence.

“They’re not like nameless kids,” said senior Kathryn Martin, 18, of Eatontown. “We know them. We have to help them out.”

As of yesterday, the Red Bank students had no idea whether the nursery school in Africa’s second-largest slum still stood or the fate of the children, aged 3 to 5. The school is affiliated with Christ the King Parish in Nairobi.

“Prior to this, the e-mails and photos were filled with hope,” said Mary Logan, adviser to the Maryknoll Club. “Now what I’m getting is all that hope is in jeopardy. It’s our job to keep that hope alive.”

Quoting from Smith’s last email:

“People were displaced, all worldly goods destroyed except for what they had on their backs, hacked to death in front of family members, limbs severed (saw photos of children), shot with poisoned arrows (a famous marathon runner died from arrow wounds), children orphaned, starved, beat, and de filed, simply because of their tribe and often by their neighbors whom they have lived and worked with for as many as 30 years,” Smith wrote.

Reporters in the Nairobi bureau of the Associated Press said Wednesday that the situation in Kibera remained shaky.

“There is still violence,” said Elizabeth Kennedy, an AP reporter and New Jersey native.

But through sources within the slum, the reporters were able to ascertain that the St. Bakhita nursery school had survived — even if it remained closed and the children’s families were holed up in their shacks, too terrified to walk the streets.

“The church and nursery are still intact,” Jakonia Onyango, a local official of the Orange Democratic Movement, the opposition party contesting the presidential election, told the Associated Press. “The youths attacked a home 10 feet away and did not touch the church.”

Smith, who lives in an apart ment in Nairobi but works in Ki bera overseeing two nursery schools and an elementary school affiliated with Christ the King Parish, reported that the entire neighborhood around St. Bakhita went up in flames, but miraculously the little nursery school was left standing.

Even if the school survived, little else will be left for the children or their families, said Maryknoll Club member Cat Baker.

“It’s so frustrating because all the work is destroyed,” said Baker, 18, a senior from Eatontown. “All their kids, there goes their hope for an education. It’s all gone now, in a way, unless we can raise money to bring it back.”

The club has raised about $10,000 for relief efforts in Kenya over the past four years, but in light of the devastation, the students are ratcheting up their fundraising. They’re holding an ice- cream sundae sale at lunchtime on Valentine’s Day and are spreading the word about the plight of their nursery school children to anyone who will listen.

“It’s like a family thing,” said Maryknoll Club member Glenn Corregano, 18, from Red Bank. “Like this is happening to one of my family members.”

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