SUPERMASSIVE
An ongoing intergenerational oral history archive of Greater New Brunswick’s Black community, connecting the Summers of Racial Unrest of 1967 to 2020. Grant funding has been provided by the Middlesex County Board of County Commissioners through a grant award from the Middlesex County Cultural and Arts Trust Fund.
Creative projects currently being developed in response to this archive include a new Black Women’s Suffrage mural and a Paul Robeson legacy mural series in New Brunswick, both to be produced by artist Kelley Prevard.
Deborah Morgan has been a resident of Highland Park for over thirty-seven years and currently serves as the secretary for the New Brunswick Area branch of the NAACP. She narrates growing up in Harlem during a time of great social change, and talks about the many nonprofit and social advocacy groups of which she has been involved. She discusses the changes that she sees, both good and bad, and emphasizes the need for young people to get involved in their communities.
Columbia student Amiri Tulloch speaks to the racial violence he has encountered and hopes to help eradicate. His love for his community is evident, and he talks about this love in how his political awareness was shaped by his relationship to Highland Park.
Toni Hendrix is an officer in the NAACP, a retired Division Manager for AT&T, and a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate for Children in Foster Care) advocate. Toni narrates her life-long passion for civil advocacy and recounts the people who helped her get to where she is in her life.
Pat Sheehan talks about her time in government, specifically about her time she spent as a part of the “New Five” and as the mayor of New Brunswick (1967-1974). She reflects on the importance of service in the work that public officials do, emphasizing that a care about one’s constituencies should be the primary concern of those in office.
Faustina Owoh discusses her journey in shaping her personal identity through community engagement. Her future goals include going into humanitarian and international law.
LeDerick Horne grew up in Franklin Township and talks about his high school experience as a student with learning disabilities. He recalls the life changing experiences he had during his college career. LeDerick is a poet and an author and has co-written the book Empowering Students with Hidden Disabilities: A Path to Pride and Success.
Metuchen native Reginald Johnson shares a plethora of interesting stories and life experiences from working as a civil service agent, to doing outreach for the police department, to his work with the executive search firm and the NAACP.
Media, PA native Eugene Armstead recounts the importance of athletics as he describes his high school and college basketball career, as well as his academic pursuits at Rutgers. Eugene has held various careers, and now spends time working at the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society and on the Lost Souls Public Memorial Project.
Maevonia Caldwell recounts moving from Georgia, to central Pennsylvania, to Rochester, New York during her childhood and teen years. In college she was active in the NAACP and was a Freedom Rider. Today, she is currently involved in the Lost Souls Project.
Franklin native Mark Stephenson discusses growing up in New Brunswick in the ‘60s and how the city and surrounding areas have changed since then. He also provides details into his personal life and his entrepreneurial careers.
After retiring from a career in education, Barbara Saunders has continued to be an active member of Mount Zion Church, both in choir positions and currently as its History Room Coordinator, an initiative that was first started by Alice Archibald.