For Immediate
Release:
August 15, 2022
Monmouth
County transfers ownership of Court Street School to Freehold Borough at no
cost
FREEHOLD, NJ – The
Monmouth County Board of County Commissioners voted unanimously to transfer
ownership of the Court Street School to Freehold Borough at no cost to the
Borough during their regular meeting on Thursday, Aug. 11.
The Commissioners marked
the occasion by presenting Freehold Mayor Kevin Kane, Court Street School Foundation
Board members and their President Emeritus Lillie Ham Hendry with a ceremonial
key to the Court Street School.
“The Court Street
School Education Community Center has incredible historical significance and
was declared an official historical site in 1995 and the Board of Commissioners
is honored to transfer ownership to Freehold Borough at no cost,” said
Commissioner Director Thomas A. Arnone. “We look forward to seeing the Court
Street School grow through their educational programming, community awareness
campaigns, and youth engagement to connect with the community in positive ways.”
“The Court Street
School was a source of great pride to the students who went there, and it was
through the efforts of its devoted alumni, especially Miss Lillie Hendry that
it was so lovingly preserved," said Freehold Mayor Kevin A. Kane. “It was built
for all the wrong reasons, a segregated school meant to keep people apart, but
restored now, and in its second life, it makes up for that by serving for all
the right reasons - to bring people together as a community.”
The original school
was organized in 1915 exclusively for the education of African American
children by the Freehold Board of Education. It was a one-room wooden building located
just west of the present site. The existing school was constructed in two phases,
in 1920 and 1926. All African American children in Freehold were educated at
Court Street School from kindergarten through eighth grade until World War II
when the school was used as an air raid shelter and a ration station.
Under pressure from
war veterans, a court order integrated the school and it reopened for
kindergarten through third grade in 1949. The school closed in 1974. In 1990,
the Court Street School Education Community Center, Inc. was formed as a
non-profit, tax-exempt organization, to restore the school for use as an
Education Community Center and to preserve it as an African American historic
landmark.
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FREEHOLD, NJ—The Monmouth County Board of County
Commissioners presented Freehold Mayor Kevin Kane, Court Street School
Foundation President Emeritus Lillie Ham Hendry and Court Street School
Foundation Board members with a ceremonial key to the Court Street School in
honor of the transfer of ownership between Monmouth County and Freehold Borough.
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