Embarking on recent untold history, residents and locals alike gathered at the Mount Zion Ame Church on March 16 to hear the first-hand experiences and accounts of six former students from the historical School No. 2 in Bordentown, the local segregated elementary school that operated from 1842-1948.
The Bordentown Historical Society, in cooperation with community partners, Building Bridges, was the host to an open-panel discussion with alumni from the Bordentown School No. 2, which gave the panelists not only an opportunity to share perspectives on their educational and social experiences at the historical school, but a chance to take questions and engage in discussion with attendees as well.
The event coincided with the Bordentown Historical Society’s most recent exhibition series, “Untold Stories: Achieving Furthered Expectations,” which aims to explain Bordentown’s past with a series of showings and programs about two institutions: School No. 2, and the Manual Training and Industrial School, the statewide boarding school located south of town, which operated from 1886-1955.
Touching on the topic of divisiveness in segregation throughout American history, the historical society said it felt a need to research and look into past educational institutions in the area that had an impact on this widespread practice at a local level.
As the first school for African American children in Bordentown, it was founded at the corner of West and Borden Streets in 1842. The school opened with 14 students ages five through 21.
The school gradually increased in size until 1853, when the Township Trustees placed the school on a comparative basis as other schools, under the charge of William F. Powell, who started a one-room school for 50 students or more.
This began the start of the School No. 2. In 1926, the No. 2 school was moved across the street. There were two school buildings – one for white students and one for black students known as the No. 2 School and located on East Burlington Street.
The school remained this way until its desegregation in 1948, six years before desegregation was mandated by the United States Supreme Court in 1954 in the case of Brown v. Board of Education.
As a Bordentown resident and former student in the local school district, April Seay, a member of Building Bridges who helped lead the panel discussion, said she felt that events like this, which touch on local history that had recently never been taught in schools, have the potential to benefit younger students now.
“I grew up in Bordentown. I graduated from Bordentown Regional High School, and throughout my school career, there were certain grades where you learn your local history. Being a black student and learning about Bordentown history, it was always focused on the Revolutionary War and our contributions to that,” Seay said. “Not to say that’s not important, but this is also important too. Going to school, I always felt a disconnect not knowing that we (African Americans) had a history [in Bordentown].
“We found out about School No. 2 when I got much older. I think that through this, younger students will have an opportunity to feel pride and acceptance in the community when they’re learning with their peers that we had contributions too – we were here,” added Seay.
As the panel discussion kicked off, the School No. 2 alumni, Ralph Ware, Earl Conaway, Sam Johnson, William “Bob” Moore, Richard “Dick” Ganges and Gertrude Ganges-Powell, shared their experiences growing up in Bordentown, described the day-to-day classroom sessions, and their perspectives on race relations in the area during their school years.
Although the alumni pointed out that most of them had white friends whom they would spend time together with in various leisure and athletic activities outside of school, they couldn’t understand as to why they had to be segregated at school.
“The only one question I always had as I was growing up was, ‘Why couldn’t we be integrated from the start?’” Johnson said. “The only answer I ever got was, ‘That’s how it was.’”
While the alumni touched on the topic of race relations and segregation during that time period, they also noted that their education and more importantly their teachers, were the ones who would eventually prepare them in furthering themselves both academically and in life for the eventual integration of races in society.
“I just want to congratulate our teachers,” Moore said. “I can remember one teacher saying, at the time, ‘It is not always going to be like this, and we want to prepare you for the time when things change, and you’ll be ready to accept it and be able to move into different situations.”
