By Joyce Blay
Staff Writer
LAKEWOOD — With or without the approval of the Township Committee, local NAACP president James Waters told the governing body at its meeting on Aug. 7, he intends to hold a Freedom March on Sept. 20.
"I said to the committee that I understood that in the history of civil rights marches, the possibility existed that you could be arrested if you marched," Waters said later. "If it could happen 40 or 50 years ago, why couldn’t I believe it could happen to me today using civil disobedience?"
Waters said he did not know if there was an ordinance that required him to get police permission to march, or if the penalty for marching without one would make him subject to arrest.
In a letter Waters sent to township manager Frank Edwards, which he made available to members of the media at the meeting, he said the proposed march will assemble at 9 a.m. at the Lakewood Community Center, and then move west on Fourth Street to Clifton Avenue, south on Clifton to Cedar Bridge Road (Route 528), before concluding at Martin Luther King Drive, where the Plaza I and Plaza II public housing complex is located, for what Waters described as a Freedom Rally.
He said the march is needed to call attention to the housing concerns of the community he said he represented.
"The issue of housing has been very controversial in town," Waters told the members of the committee. "The misery index in our town in terms of terrorist threat to our country is not orange — it’s red, shocking red."
Waters told the committee that his antidote to the situation was an old style civil rights march reminiscent of the 1960s. He said it would include participants representing NAACP branches throughout the state, including Mount Laurel.
Mount Laurel has become synonymous with affordable housing as a result of litigation by the NAACP to overturn exclusionary zoning practices in that community during the 1970s. Waters later said the inclusion of the Mount Laurel NAACP members in the event he is planning is a means of reminding Lakewood’s government of the need for additional Section 8 housing in town.
"I’m hoping we can work together in this community to make life better for everyone," Waters said. "I’ve supported every one of you at one time or the other, and we want to believe you support us."
Despite Waters’ hope that committee members would support his commitment to the march, they were less than enthusiastic.
"Speaking as an individual, not just a member of the Township Committee," said Charles Cunliffe, the governing body’s liaison to the Lakewood Police Department, "there’s always that [question] of a double meaning in what you say. I’ll speak to the police department, but if you put all that energy into approaching the bankers and other people who could help you, [you would achieve more constructive results]. That’s just one man’s opinion."
Waters did not share that opinion.
Several weeks ago, Waters told the committee at its July 24 meeting that he believed Lakewood was on the verge of erupting in riots.
"There’s a lot of tension in this community," the NAACP leader said. "Let’s not take this quietly. I might not be able to stop what will happen here. Don’t let the riots of the 2000s start here."
He discussed his views afterward with a reporter.
"I’m appealing to the [committee] before something bad happens to our town," he said, citing the Plaza I and Plaza II public housing apartment complex on Martin Luther King Drive as a community on the verge of upheaval.
Waters said most of the public housing apartments in the complex that are on Lois Lane have been vacant for more than a year. He said he believed Orthodox Jews were going to build a development on the site, despite the fact that the primary population throughout the rest of the complex is minority. Waters said he did not think the two groups could peacefully coexist with each other.
"They celebrate the Sabbath on a day that is usually set aside for Hispanics and African-Americans to hold cookouts, barbeques and recreational activities. The two groups can’t socialize because there’s a cultural difference, and I think they would tell you that, too. I think there’s enough tension in town," said Waters.
Township Committeeman Ray Coles did not share that opinion.
"Isn’t it amazing that in today’s age a black man would say people can’t live together because of what they are?" said Coles. "I would like to know what Mr. Waters would have said 30 years ago had a white gentleman stood up and asked the same question about protecting the integrity of his neighborhood. For somebody in the position that Mr. Waters is in, he is making some incredibly irresponsible comments."
Coles said he was incensed that Waters appeared to be manufacturing a situation that he felt did not exist.
"I was extremely annoyed that he came to us, not with a proposed solution to a problem, but one that he was inventing," said Coles. "Lakewood has problems, nobody denies that, but I don’t believe that anybody, except Mr. Waters, would say that tensions between the different groups in town have [reached the point of a riot]. For someone who represents the NAACP, he’s out of touch with the constituency he supposedly represents."
Coles saved his harshest criticism for Waters’ role in fighting courtesy busing provided by the Lakewood Board of Education.
Waters, a member of the Coalition of Advocates for Public School Students (CAPS), supported a petition signed and filed last year with the state Department of Education by George Osborne, the group’s acting chairman. The petition protested the Lakewood school district’s policy of busing boys and girls in separate buses to Orthodox Jewish private schools that are within walking distance of many children’s homes.
The courtesy busing matter is currently in litigation.
"For years, Jim has gotten up and made statements that could not be substantiated by fact or were … vague innuendoes," Coles said. "Rather than addressing the issues that are in front of us, such as housing [and] education … he spent an enormous amount of time fighting an imaginary issue of segregated busing. [He should instead have been] focusing on concrete ways that we can improve the performance of the Lakewood School District."
That is the same assertion made by former CAPS co-chairman the Rev. Jimmy Wilcox. Wilcox is now head of the newly formed group Leading Together, which he said he organized to address the educational problems in Lakewood that Osborn and Waters have ignored.
In a letter sent to Greater Media Newspapers, Wilcox leveled the same charge as Coles had against Waters.
"During a recent Lakewood Township Committee meeting, Waters said he had a moral obligation to speak out against the units that are going to be built on or around Warren Avenue," wrote Wilcox, referring to another parcel that is purportedly being developed by Orthodox Jewish interests, according to Waters. "[He] said that the integrity of this neighborhood must be preserved … Who will make the ultimate decision as to who is worth the saving, Waters?"
For Waters, the answer to Wilcox’s question is simple.
"This isn’t about me, it’s about the people I represent," said Waters. "I want to draw attention to Lakewood, starting with this first march, but we intend to have another and another until something is done about improving the housing for blacks and Latinos in the community."