February 27, 2009

Berline Williams, Attorney Robert Queen, Leon Williams, Gladys Hedgepeth, Janet Hedgepeth
 

The Importance of Hedgepeth and Williams v. Board of Education, Trenton, NJ (1944)

 (By Marcellus D. Smith, Jr.)

The purpose of this paper is to encourage the Trenton, NJ Board of Education to acknowledge the NJ Supreme Court’s Hedgepeth and Williams v. Board of Education, Trenton, NJ (1944) decision, which initiated actions in New Jersey and across the Nation that ultimately reduced segregation and other forms of discrimination in public institutions everywhere in America. The state Core Curriculum Content Standards require that all NJ public school students be tested on the profound effects of the Hedgepeth and Williams case (CCCS 6.2.8-C.5.). Trenton students, especially, should be taught about the origins and history of the Hedgepeth and Williams case, and about the impact of that decision on educational policy and Civil Rights across the Nation. The case should be recognized at least in Black History Month events.

Trenton’s role is important to equal opportunity in the Nation, having adjudicated the precedent to the historic U.S. Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas (1965). On January 31, 1944, the New Jersey State Supreme Court ruled in Hedgepeth and Williams that a school district may not refuse to admit or assign students to public schools on the basis of race. The effect of Hedgepeth and Williams was to neutralize Plessey v. Ferguson (“Separate but Equal”) in all of the public schools of New Jersey. Hence, the public schools of NJ became the first places of public accommodation in the Nation open to African Americans on the same basis as to Caucasian Americans! And, that was 10 years before the Federal Brown decision and a full 20 years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The Hedgepeth and Williams decision resulted from a suit filed by two African American mothers: Mrs. Berline Williams on behalf of her son – Leon, and Mrs. Gladys Hedgepeth on behalf of her daughter – Janet. The case was litigated by Mr. Robert Queen, the local NAACP attorney who had, 12 years earlier, successfully forced Trenton Central High School to allow Black students to use the pool. Hence, Hedgepeth and Williams became the first state court decision in the Nation to order public schools to desegregate their enrollments, on the basis of race, color, creed (religion), ancestry and national origin.

Ten years later, the Honorable Thurgood Marshall and his team of NAACP attorneys applied the Hedgepeth and Williams decision (the only state anti-segregation legal precedent in the Nation) to the successful litigation strategy used in the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka KS decision, which overturned the doctrine of “Separate but Equal” across the land.

The 1944 Hedgepeth and Williams decision also caused or contributed to other momentous changes (listed below) and influenced the creation of Affirmative Action law and policy in New Jersey:

1. 1945 - Based on the principles in Hedgepeth and Williams, the Fair Employment Act was enacted the very next year, prohibiting discrimination in employment on the basis of race.
2. 1945 – That same year, the New Jersey Division Against Discrimination was established in the NJ Department of Education to protect the civil rights of persons on the basis or race, color, creed, ancestry and national origin in schools and in employment and housing practices. 
3. 1947 - The New Jersey Constitution was ratified, conferring upon every citizen two civil rights:
   1. The RIGHT to a “Thorough and Efficient” system of public instruction (the right to an education of highest quality in the public schools of New Jersey) and
   2. The RIGHT of every student of color to receive a high-quality education in any public school, on a basis free of segregation, prejudice and other acts of discrimination.
4. 1949 – The Freeman Act was passed to provide victims of discrimination with a vehicle for filing for relief via appeals to, and orders for relief from, the NJ Division Against Discrimination, which at that time was still a part of the NJ Department of Education.

5. 1950 – The NJ Law Against Discrimination was enacted, accomplishing three significant things:
   1. Discrimination of every form was prohibited in every arena of public life in New Jersey.
   2. The Division Against Discrimination was transferred to the NJ Department of Law and Public Safety, thereby giving its decisions the force of law and empowering it with the full authority of the State Attorney General.
   3. Nevertheless, oversight of school desegregation matters remained with the NJ Dept. of Education, which at that time lacked a proactive enforcement mechanism.
6. 1965 – Hedgepeth and Williams served as a legal precedent for the landmark New Jersey Supreme Court case, Booker v. Plainfield (1965). Together, those two court decisions:

1. Declared that the very act of segregating or separating students from each other injures those students, whether done intentionally or accidentally. (A person killed by accident is just as dead as one killed deliberately.) Clearly, to the victim, the effect is the same.
2. Ended all legal support and rejected all excuses for using or permitting any form of prejudice, segregation, or other discriminatory practice against students or staff within public schools on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, relative wealth or poverty, or gender (added in 1973); and required local boards of education to correct the residual effects of such discrimination upon students, employees and their communities.

In 1973, the Honorable Wynona Lipman, the first African American New Jersey State Senator, introduced a bill that was clearly influenced by the state Supreme Court’s Hedgepeth and Williams decision of 1944 and by its Booker decision of 1965. That bill became the state’s first law (NJSA 18A:36-20) requiring local school districts to remove segregation and all vestiges of discrimination in their educational policies and practices, and to act affirmatively to provide equal opportunity for all students and staff in the district. In 1975, to implement this new law, the state Board of Education issued regulations governing Equality in Educational Programs (NJAC 6:4), to enforce equity compliance in all NJ public schools.

The importance of Hedgepeth and Williams is documented by the following sources, among others:

• By the writings of author Dr. Jack Washington in books documenting the history of Trenton, NJ;
• By a January 31, 1944 front-page article in the (then) Trenton Evening News; and
• By official reports of the NJ State Department of Education, including its Guidelines Governing the Desegregation of Public Schools in New Jersey (1989), and its Annual Review of Progress Report on School Desegregation in New Jersey Public Schools (1992, 1993 & 1995).

In 1991, the Trenton NJ Board of Education renamed the former “white-only” Junior High School #2, from which African American students had been barred. It was renamed the Hedgepeth-Williams School, in honor of the two special women whose courage and hard work has been of so much benefit to so many others over so many years. Every Trenton Public School student should be taught the history of this personal and societal triumph, and Hedgepeth and Williams should be celebrated at least every February and March in the district’s recognitions of Black History Month and Women’s History Month.

BE ADVISED: Mrs. Berline William’s daughter is the district’s former Director of Curriculum, Dr. Thelma Napoleon-Smith; her son, Ernest Williams, is former Trenton Chief of Police; and her granddaughter, Pam Owens, and great-granddaughter, Keisha Owens, both work for the District.