CCA EXHIBIT ON EDUCATION & SEGREGATION

OPENS IN WEST CAPE MAY

On Wednesday, May 24, 2006, at 6:00 p.m., Center for Community Arts (CCA) will host a reception to celebrate the opening in West Cape May of its Community History Program exhibit, “A Feeling of Community: Segregation and Education on Cape Island, 1860-1954,” at West Cape May Borough Hall, 732 Broadway. The event is free and open to the public.

The exhibit contains artifacts, photographs and excerpts from oral histories gathered by CCA’s Community History Program over the last ten years. It tells part of the story of education on Cape Island between the establishment of public school in 1860 and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education that ended legalized school segregation throughout the nation. New Jersey’s State Constitution outlawed segregation in 1947.

Sections of the exhibit focus on two girls who grew up in West Cape May, Mary Cordelia Howard (Bounds) and Janet Eldredge (Vance), who went to school in adjacent, racially segregated elementary schools and graduated first and second in their Cape May High School class (of 1929). Other individuals featured include William J. Moore, superintendent of the segregated West Cape May elementary school, and Emily Dempsey, a current resident of West Cape May, co-founder of CCA, and alumnus of the segregated Franklin Street School in Cape May.

The exhibit has been re-designed for West Cape May Borough Hall by CCA Curator Rachel Rodgers, and re-assembled in collaboration with CCA Community History Program volunteers. The exhibit is traveling to West Cape May, where it will remain through Labor Day, at the invitation of Mayor Pam Kaithern. It was originally displayed from January – mid-May 2006 at the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts (MAC), with design by Yvonne Skaggs.

CCA and MAC receive operating support from the New Jersey Historical Commission, and this exhibit is supported by Sturdy Bank. CCA and MAC also receive support from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, and many generous businesses and individuals.

For further information, please see centerforcommunityarts.org or call 884-7525.

CLASS OF ’29 – Mary Cordelia Howard Bounds (seated) and Janet Eldredge Vance, two members of the Cape May High School Class of 1929, were reunited recently at a panel discussion of the CCA Community History Program exhibit, “A Feeling of Community: Segregation and Education on Cape Island.” Both women are natives of West Cape May, who went on to teach public school: Bounds at Cape May’s Franklin Street School, and Eldredge in Cape May Court House. The exhibit opens at West Cape May’s Borough Hall on Wednesday, May 24, 2006, at 6:00 p.m., with a celebratory reception, free and open to the public. For information call 884-7525 .