Bordentown’s former black private school is reborn in film
By Anthony Stoeckert
GO ahead and try to learn about the Bordentown School. No books about it are for sale on Amazon, and none can be found in the Burlington County Library System database, which includes a Bordentown branch. There are no Web sites devoted to the school, and it isn’t even mentioned on Wikipedia pages on Bordentown Township and Bordentown City.
About the only thing you’ll find online is a four-paragraph summary of the school in the archives section on the New Jersey Department of State’s Web site. Filmmakers Dave Davidson and Amber Edwards are aiming to bring the school’s story to light with their documentary, A Place Out of Time — The Bordentown School, to be screened at the New Jersey Film Festival in New Brunswick Sept. 20 and 25.
The movie uses research, archival footage and interviews from scholars and Bordentown alumni to share the story of the school and its importance. Its history spanned 70 years, beginning with the opening of a black private school on the Delaware River outside Bordentown City. It became a public school in 1894, as part of Jim Crow laws, and quickly became a renowned institute with a campus sprawled over 400 acres, including two working farms and more than 30 buildings.
Inside those buildings, black students were taught trades and crafts designed to make them competitive in the job market. By 1927, the school added a vigorous college prep program, featuring African-American instructors educated at colleges like Harvard and Amherst. The school’s principal during this era, William Valentine, blended the competing philosophies of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois in creating his curriculum.
”That’s one of the, I think, interesting tensions that goes on in the story, which is that yes, segregation is bad, Jim Crow is bad, but during this period there were things that black people created themselves,” says A Place Out of Time co-producer Ms. Edwards. “Not everything that’s from the Jim Crow era was imposed on blacks by whites.
”This school and all of these historically black organizations were self-generated so during the civil rights movement you had this kind of turning your back on all of the past, which included some of the good things,” Ms. Edwards continues. “It’s a baby with the bath water kind of thing. On the other hand, you can’t go back. No one wants to go back, but I think it’s valuable to just turn your gaze back and ask, What were some positive things that came from this period?”
The positive would appear to include graduates of the Bordentown School interviewed in the documentary. They went on to varied careers as professors, machinists, marine scientists and horse breeders. Interviewed during a reunion on the campus’s former grounds (now the home of a juvenile detention center), they speak glowingly about the school and the opportunities it gave them. One man talks about coming to Bordentown from a bigoted public school. If he was disciplined at Bordentown, he says, he knew it wasn’t because of his skin color.
”Their struggles didn’t end when they graduated from Bordentown, but the nice thing about the Bordentown experience is that it really prepared them, in a way, to be able to step off into a fairly hostile world,” says Mr. Davidson, the film’s director. “They were very grounded, they got a good education, they were headed in the right direction, but also they had a sense of identity… It came from the idea that they were forced together, but it gave them a sense of black culture when white culture didn’t even acknowledge them.”
Students were required to enter the academic track, and to learn a trade. They also had to participate in the campus’s maintenance by performing chores like harvesting crops, stoking the furnace and serving food. Lionel Hunter, a 1958 graduate and president of the Bordentown School Social Club, talks about how he has a college degree and can also upholster a chair. He adds that he learned as much math in auto shop as he did in math class. In fact, he says, he might not have gotten through a calculus college class without what he learned in auto shop.
”That’s a whole other part of this story, which is completely irrespective of race, which is a question to ask in education now: What is the value in some sort of hands-on training where not everyone goes to college?” Ms. Edwards says. Students would likely benefit from learning hands-on work and contributing to their school’s operations. Who wouldn’t want to know how to upholster a chair?
”Even if you go to college, you can enrich your life by carrying a little wood and fetching some water every once in a while because it keeps you grounded and it keeps you connected to the planet,” Mr. Davidson says.
Narration is provided by Ruby Dee, the legendary actress, writer and, along with her late husband, Ossie Davis, activist. Mr. Davidson says Ms. Lee agreed to do the narration after reading a three-line description of the movie.
”During the recording session, she kept saying, ‘I wish Ossie were around because I want to tell him about this school,’” Ms. Edwards says. “She couldn’t get over this story that she was telling.”
A different chapter of New Jersey history is delved into with The Last Bastions of Rock, a film about New Jersey music clubs by Fritch Clark. The movie, which will be shown on the festival’s first two nights, Sept. 4 and 5, is a virtual one-man band, made by Mr. Clark with a video camera and his Mac.
Much of the movie explores the music scene of New Brunswick and legendary clubs like the Melody Bar, which is now closed, and the Court Tavern, which remains open. One scene shows Dave Dreiwitz, the bassist for the band Ween, calling the Court Tavern “sacred ground of rock ‘n’ roll” before adding “I learned how to play music here.”
Mr. Clark, who in the past ran projectors during screenings at the New Jersey Film Festival, is a clear lover of the music and these Jersey clubs, located everywhere from Hoboken to Asbury Park. He began by interviewing Randy Now, a disc jockey and concert promoter, during Mr. Now’s 50th birthday party.
Mr. Now, whose concerts at City Gardens in Trenton offered a venue for acts like R.E.M., Nirvana, Beck and Sonic Youth, talks about the venue, which closed in 2001 after hosting slam dances and mosh pits as early as 1981. Of R.E.M.’s early ‘80s concert at City Gardens, Mr. Now says 42 people attended, but he’s met more than 400 people who say they were there.
The clubs may be known for hosting legends, but fans express as much love for lesser-known bands with names like George is Dead, REO Speed Dealer and the Groucho Marxists.
Mr. Clark says the crowds in these clubs were just as important to their atmosphere as the bands.
”It’s no big deal nowadays to have tattoos and piercings and spiked hair, but at one point, people would really flip out at that,” the director says. “Nowadays you can’t shock anybody, everybody has tattoos.”
Some of these clubs remain open, still bringing music to fans. In addition to the Court Tavern, there’s Asbury Lanes (where bands like Angelworm and Monsters of Burlesque have recently played) and the Loop Lounge in Passaic. Mr. Now currently promotes concerts at the Record Collector in Bordentown.
”That’s what I’m really doing, is to let people know what a great history of music we have here,” Mr. Clark says. “A lot of people started here, and these little venues in these towns play an important role. And it’s still going on.”
- The Last Bastions of Rock will be screened at Scott Hall, near the corner of College Avenue and Hamilton Street, 43 College Ave., College Avenue Campus, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, Sept. 4-5, 7 p.m. Little Criminals and We Enjoy Yourself will also be shown. A Place Out of Time — The Bordentown School will be screened at Scott Hall, Sept. 20 and 25, 7 p.m. with The Cartel. Tickets cost $10, $9 students, $8 seniors. For information and a full festival schedule: 732-932-8482; www.njfilmfest.com