The Georgia of the North

Black Women and the Civil Rights Movement in New Jersey

Hettie V. Williams

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781978819399, 9781978819436
• eBook ISBN: 9781978819429
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: African American History
• Index: History

The Georgia of the North is a historical narrative about Black women and the long civil rights movement in New Jersey from the Great Migration to 1954. Specifically, the critical role played by Black women in forging interracial, cross-class, and cross-gender alliances at the local and national level and their role in securing the passage of progressive civil rights legislation in the Garden State is at the core of this book. This narrative is largely defined by a central question:  How and why did New Jersey's Black leaders, community members, and women in particular, affect major civil rights legislation, legal equality, and integration a decade before the Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas decision? In this analysis, the history of the early Black freedom struggle in New Jersey is predicated on the argument that the Civil Rights Movement began in New Jersey, and that Black women were central actors in this struggle. 

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations and Tables
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. “Bury Me in a Free Land”: The Great Migration and the Rise of the Black Population in the Garden State
• 2. “Still I’ll Rise”: Black Community Institutions and the Rise of the Black Professional Class in New Jersey
• 3. “A Young Colored Girl’s Haven from Prejudice”: The Montclair YWCA and the Black Women’s Club Movement in New Jersey
• 4. “The Urgency of the Hour Was with Us”: Anna Arnold Hedgeman and the Civil Rights Movement in the North
• 5. “Now Is the Time to Plan for Your Future”: Sara Spencer Washington’s Boardwalk Empire and the Black Freedom Struggle in Atlantic City
• 6. “Between These Two Extremes”: Marion Thompson Wright and the Civil Rights Movement in New Jersey
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author