---

In an open letter to the Mayor and City Council, Help Not Handcuffs Founder Randy Thompson, Muata Greene and Deidre ‘Tiff’ Metcalf, and a group of area signatories will call for the removal of the James A Bradley statue that sits in the waterfront located park in the city founder’s name.

Thompson’s organization is a nonprofit that works to help reform drug policy from a recovery and human rights perspective. They have participated in UN policy discussions as a guest member of Harm Reduction Coalition and Students for Sensible Drug Policy delegations, and were granted special consultative status with the UN’s Economic and Social Council [ECOSOC] in September.

The city resident has been leading the local charge to have the statue removed every since the national debate apexed after the August 2017 white nationalist march to preserve a Robert E Lee statue in Charlottesville, Va., left one woman dead and dozens injured.

Below is a copy of letter:

We, the undersigned, are writing today to ask for the removal of the James A. Bradley statue from Bradley Park. This statue is an overt symbol of racism and erroneously commemorates a history of segregation that remains a subject of contention in our predominately African American community.

James A. Bradley was a key segregationist and was known as the ‘Jim Crow of the North.’ In addition to founding Asbury Park, James A. Bradley was a major landowner, the publisher of the “Asbury Park Journal, and was the mayor of the city. In each of these roles, Mr. Bradley chose to promote racism in order to protect his own economic interest by segregating the Asbury Park boardwalk, thereby institutionalizing racism. 

Within years of the Civil War, James A. Bradley bought 500 acres with the intention of building a resort community that would ‘be attractive to and demonstrative of the values of middle-class white Protestant America.’ By the early 1880s, Asbury Park had some estimated 3,000 permanent residents, hundreds of hotels and a vibrant tourist industry ‘attracting as many as 50,000 summer visitors a year.’ However, on the other side of town resided ‘Asbury Park’s other population – the group of African American men and women who worked as hotelmen, laundresses, waiters, and janitors in Bradley’s service industry.’

With many of the white tourists objecting to the large presence of African Americans that worked and vacationed in Asbury Park, Mr. Bradley instituted social and racial boundaries in many public spaces – first “establishing bathing hours during which black people would be allowed access to the beaches,’ then barring blacks from ‘white establishments through the creation of colored facilities,’ and eventually prohibiting all African Americans from the ‘beaches, bathing houses, pavilions, and promenades.’

Bradley, himself, was known to have written out signs enforcing segregation. Not only was Bradley met with resistance from the African American community, but his actions were noted by the press and used by southern legislatures to argue for segregation which later become law under Jim Crow in 1896. 

James A. Bradley’s actions put in place segregationist policies that are still affecting us today. The economic disparity that exists between the West and East side of our city is a direct result of these racist policies. We, concerned residents, taxpayers, veterans and community organizations, feel there is a need for our representatives to take a stand, correcting the wrongs of the past by moving forward devoted to an inclusive and reparative vision for the future.

Although we recognize that this is our history, this statue is an affront in a city, which prides itself upon being progressive. Our city can lead the way as we did in legalizing same sex marriage and calling for the legalization of marijuana. We can be bold in addressing the persistent racism that exists in certain aspects of our culture. The first step in doing so is to remove this statue that represents a dark period in our past and an ideology unworthy of honor.

As our elected Mayor and Council Members of the City of Asbury Park, will you commit to removing the statue of James A. Bradley; and form a commission to recommend a statue or symbol of replacement, which represents Asbury Park’s diverse community and cultural values?

To add your name to the petition, email info@helpnothandcuffs.com with Bradley Statue Removal in the subject line.

————————————————————————————————-

Follow the Asbury Park Sun on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The Asbury Park Sun is affiliated with the triCityNews newspaper.

---