Black Women in Education
Asbury Park schools put spotlight on black women making a difference
Great things come out of Asbury Park. They’re just out of the spotlight, the Rev. Nicolle Harris said Wednesday night.
“Asbury Park family, it’s time we let that light shine,” Harris told the packed crowd at the Paramount Theatre. “We refuse to be hidden anymore.”
Hidden, she said, were the accomplishments of black women within the community. Names like Henrietta Zachary, the first black female councilwoman, drill team instructor Doris “Ms. Dot” Kelly and educator Roberta Beauford are often overlooked in lieu of stories of crime and mayhem in the media, including this newspaper
“Presenting Betsy Coleman! First black woman to receive a pilot’s license. First black woman to fly a plane,” said one student. “Many rejected me, but no one can stop me.”
Other students channeled Harriet Tubman, former First Lady Michelle Obama and Ruby Bridges, the first black child to attend an all-white school district in the country.
Celebrating black women
When school officials handed out awards, their attention turned to black women who currently hold positions of power such as New Jersey Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver and Secretary of State Tahesha Way.
But they also celebrated local leaders, parents and children who, Harris says, are rarely highlighted in mainstream media and history. She called them hidden figures, much like how NASA mathematicians Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson were hidden until recent years.
“No longer will black women be hidden figures,” said Harris, an Asbury Park native and one of the honorees. “I want to thank the Asbury Park School District for assuring that these women’s names would no longer be concealed and forgotten archives or buried and little blurbs in the back of history books — if their names were in the history books at all.”
Kareen Delice-Kircher, a business owner involved in a local church and the tech community, was recognized as a distinguished woman of Asbury Park.
“Asbury Park has been part and parcel of my heart since 1986 when my parents and us, the kids, came here from Haiti, the same year the dictatorship fell in Haiti,” said Delice-Kircher, owner of DevOps Advisors and a member of the city’s Code and Quality of Life committee.
President of the nonprofit New Jersey-Haiti Partners, Delice-Kircher founded the Haitian Heritage Month Celebration last year in Asbury Park. She noted that the Haitian community has been a part of the city since 1962.
“We are part and parcel of Asbury Park through the hard years, through the good …
Read More- Asbury Park schools put spotlight on black women making a difference
