BY KATHY CHANG
Staff Writer
METUCHEN – The Ku Klux Klan was here.
“The Klan reached its peak in terms of power and influence during the 1920s,” said Tyreen Reuter, a member of the Metuchen-Edison Historical Society.
Back in 2000, Reuter researched Klan activity in Metuchen during the 1920s for the course “New Jersey History from the Civil War to the Present” at Drew University.
She presented her findings at the society’s black oral history event recently.
There were about 3,334 residents in Metuchen in 1920, according to the Middlesex County census. Most of them were white and had been born in the United States, Reuter said.
“There were only 162 African-Americans listed in the 1920 census for Metuchen,” she said. “A third of those were female domestic servants living in the employer’s home.”
The job of a domestic servant was referred to as days work, said Reuter.
The Metuchen Recorder, the local paper at the time, indicated that the Protestant church dominated the religious life of the town.
African American families and groups resided on New Street, Central Avenue, Durham Avenue, Center Street, Bloomfield Avenue, Maple Avenue, Middlesex Avenue and Christol Street, said Reuter.
“There was a ‘colored church’ at the intersection of New and Pearl streets,” she said.
Klan activity was noted in old newspaper clippings from the Metuchen Recorder.
“The newspaper reported on May 18, 1923, that a meeting of Methodists were interrupted by a ‘Klan-dodger’ of unknown identity,” said Reuter. “Two months later, a cross burning on Lafayette Road near Woodbridge Avenue was attempted by a group of about 50 white-robed Klansmen.”
On April 24, 1924, the Metuchen Recorder’s headline read “Burning of Cross Here Last Night Thought to Be Work of the Klan. Second Visit to Borough.”
Seven crosses of KKK burned on various points of the borough, according to a front page article on July 4, 1924, in the Metuchen Recorder.
The end of summer 1924 is the end of any reported cross burnings in the 1920s, said Reuter.
“There has been additional information with regards to Klan activity in Metuchen in the 1930s and through to the 1970s,” said Reuter.
The borough had a total population of 12,840, according to the U.S. 2000 census.
The census provided the racial makeup of the borough at 84.38 percent white; 5.30 percent African American, 0.10 percent Native American; 7.23 percent Asian, 0 percent Pacific Islander, 1.12 percent from other races, and 1.86 percent from two or more races; 3.96 percent of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race.
No Klan activity has been reported in some time, but in May 2004, there were hate group leaflets distributed in the borough by White Revolution. Community leaders and police described the distribution as limited.