The Great Migration and Asbury Park

This Week in Black History, Society, and Culture

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses a short documentary film on Asbury Park, New Jersey titled “The Great Migration and Asbury Park” with Erin Fleming, and Claude Taylor. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University, Fleming is the Director of Production Services at Monmouth, and Taylor is a Professor of Communication and Director for Academic Transition and Inclusion at Monmouth. Fleming is the producer and director of the short film “Asbury Park and the Great Migration.” This short film features Claude Taylor, who was born and raised in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and Madonna Carter Jackson, who also spent her early life in Asbury Park, and preeminent scholar of African Americans in New Jersey Graham Russell Gao Hodges. Hodges is author of Black New Jersey: 1664 to the Present published by Rutgers University Press. African Americans have populated the city of Asbury Park for decades and this is a region that has contributed greatly to the history of African Americans from the rise of the Great Migration, the formation of the NAACP, through the Civil Rights Movement, to the present.