Bessie Grover and Robert S. True to be memorialized
By: Jake Uitti
MONTGOMERY Two plaques commemorating the contributions of black community leaders in the township have been created and are ready to be put on display.
The plaques, which were paid for by a grant from the New Jersey Department of State’s Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Commission, honor Bessie Grover and Robert S. True, two former Montgomery residents.
Ms. Grover has a small park in the township named after her on Camp Meeting Avenue in honor of her heroic efforts in rescuing four people from a burning house in 1978, two of whom were her great-grandchildren.
Ms. Grover also devoted her time to the Skillman community and the Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church.
The plaque for Ms. Grover will be put on a boulder in her park. The boulder is expected to be installed within the next couple of weeks.
Mr. True is a former roads foreman for the Department of Public Works in Montgomery. He was an employee of the township for 30 years, the last 16 as foreman. The Department of Public Works building, located on Harlingen Road, was named in honor of Mr. True in 1983.
Mr. True’s plaque is planned to be put on the Public Works building.
Earlier this year, the Solid Rock United Pentecostal Church, located on Route 518 in Montgomery, was awarded a $5,000 grant from the commemorative commission to assist the church’s New Jersey African American Legacy Program, which is directed by Montgomery resident Renee Carr.
Ms. Carr said the objective of the program is to provide education to Montgomery residents about local black leaders, with the hope that other New Jersey towns will follow suit in their own communities.
"New Jersey African American Legacy Program will be launched from Montgomery and hopefully will take off in other communities," she said.
In addition to the plaques, Ms. Carr is planning to print four brochures that will help educate township residents on the contributions of black community leaders.
One brochure will be dedicated to Mr. True, another to Ms. Grover, a third will be dedicated to Charles Hughes and the fourth will be on the Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church and the Skillman community.
Mr. Hughes, Ms. Carr said, was the first black entrepreneur in the township. He owned and operated a taxi service in the township in the 1930s.
"The brochures will be put throughout the township," Ms. Carr said, primarily in the schools, the municipal building and the Otto Kaufman Community Center.
Ms. Carr said she also is planning five, 20-minute, age-appropriate lectures in the district’s five schools to explain the past in the township and how it relates to black history.
Those will begin in January, she said, as a precursor to Black History Month and Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. The lectures, she said, will discuss the Skillman community, the railroad, a major employer of blacks in the township, and other topics. The program will continue through June.
Ms. Carr said a special thanks is due to the Rev. Lonnie Reed of the Solid Rock United Pentecostal Church for his help in the process.
The Solid Rock church received the money from the commemorative commission, and Ms. Carr, in her capacity as director of the New Jersey African American Legacy Program, gets the money from the church.
Ms. Carr is the founding partner with her husband, Jerome, of A Parents’ Initiative for Every Child’s Education or APIECE.
For more information, visit the APIECE Web site at www.apiecenj.com.

