| “We didn’t feel deprived at all,” she remembers. “Our teachers never
missed a day of school. They were all so dedicated.”
She remembers her teachers most of all– all three of them. There
were only three classrooms in the segregated school. Mrs. Cordelia
Howard taught grades
 K through 2nd grade. Mrs. Florence Porter
taught grades 3 through 6th. And the principal, Mrs. Owens, taught
grades 6, 7, and 8.
Mrs. Owens also taught Emily’s mother, Sarah, nee Bose who will be
89 Feb. 2nd. Sarah was in the first Franklin Street School
graduating class – Franklin Street Elementary was built in 1927 as a
segregated school. Emily’s older sister, Florence (by two years) was
in the last graduating class in 1948. That was year the state of New
Jersey outlawed segregation. Emily was in the sixth grade and ended
up graduating with an integrated class.
When her class made the move to the integrated school, Emily said “I
remember our teachers telling us ‘Put your best foot forward because
you’ll have to do twice as well to succeed.’ ”
However, the subtleties and in some cases, not so subtle aspects of
segregation were not lost on the small Afro-American community.
Franklin Street Elementary, for example was a much newer building
than Cape May High School, located around the corner on Washington
Street. Franklin Street School was built with a beautiful gym. But
that gym was meant for the white high school students next door. The
kids at Franklin Street Elementary School were not permitted to use
the gym except on rainy days at recess. Even then, they had to go
outside to gain access to the gym.
In fact, according to Steve Bacher, executive director for the
Center for Community Arts, which hopes to call the Franklin Street
School home by 2008, the school was designed architecturally so that
no door could be used to connect the school to the gym. The gym, he
said is on the ground floor but the classrooms are on the upper
floors. Any attempt to connect the two would result in a door
leading to nowhere. And to drive home the point – the city had two
separate grand openings in 1927. One for the segregated school and
one for the gym.
And that’s how it was back then.
 After 1948, Franklin Street School
was relegated to what Bacher refers to as a “precursor to the
vo-tech schools.” Subsequently, care of the school came under the
city government’s jurisdiction. It has been used as a municipal
storage area and has fallen into a steady state of disrepair ever
since.
Advocacy efforts by the Center for Community Arts led to New Jersey
designating the school an African-American Historic Site. In January
2002, the Center signed a 25-year lease of the school from the City
of Cape May. Currently, the Center is working with the City to
rehabilitate the school for community use. By 2008, the Center
expects to completely rehabilitate the Franklin Street School and
reopen it as a community cultural center.
The school will
house the Center for Community Arts programs, including its Youth
Arts Programs, Community History Program, Artist-in-Residence
Program, programs for seniors, and a Community Media Technology
Center.
It will also
house the Center’s John and Janet Nash African-American History
Archives and the archives of the Greater Cape May Historical
Society; recreational programs of the City of Cape May’s Department
of Civic Affairs; community meeting, classroom, exhibit and
rehearsal spaces; and a permanent exhibit of the history of the
School and Cape May’s African-American community.
The project is expected to cost $2 million.
In April, work
began on Phase One of the project which included removal of all
environmentally hazardous materials and stabilizing the building
until repairs can begin.
John Nash is
both a Franklin Street g raduate and a collector of local African
American history. While his health permitted, Nash kept a close eye
on the progress being made at the school this summer. For example,
contractors erected temporary gable vents to replace the plywood
used to board up the windows for years. Later, the vents will be
replaced by historically-correct windows. Some of Nash’s and
Dempsey’s memorabilia is currently in display in the Carriage House
Gallery, on the grounds of the Emlen Physick Estate.
The exhibition
entitled "Two Women, Two Worlds" is a collaborative exhibit with the
Center for Community Arts (CCA) and the Mid-Atlantic Center for the
Arts. It examines the fashions, accessories, activities and lives of
two classes of Victorian-era women in Cape May-the upper class and
the working class. Photographs, artifacts and oral histories from
Cape May residents are included. The exhibition runs through May 15th.
Similar
exhibitions and memorabilia will be on display permanently when the
Franklin Street Elementary School re-do is complete in 2008.
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