On the Road to Black Caucus
In preparation for the 48th gathering of the National Black Presbyterian Caucus, the Presbyterian Historical Society offers stories from the Black Presbyterian Archive. Click here to learn how PHS is collecting records of the Black Presbyterian experience through the African American Leaders and Congregations Initiative.
An FBI agent came to the Ivory family home in Howell Township, New Jersey one afternoon in late 1971, while Elenora Ivory was preparing dinner. The dust had largely settled on the summer’s struggle between her group of concerned parents and the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. The agent tried to explain that Klan speech was covered by the First Amendment, and that little could be done against them, as “there is wrong on both sides.”
Events in rural Monmouth County had been sparked by homework. A Black student in Howell Township schools had, like everyone else, been assigned to write about their “family heritage.” The student’s grandmother asked for an exception, writing that neither she nor the student had ever studied African American history, and that the school had no texts available to guide them.
Black parents and guardians organized themselves into Citizens for Progressive Action, and called for the local school board to start a Black studies curriculum in grade school, and to close schools for Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, January 15th. After the announcement of their demands, trash and Klan literature were thrown into the yards of four CPA leaders, and Elenora cautioned the local newspaper “We intend to use whatever means of support necessary to protect ourselves.”
It was liberation time, and “by any means necessary” was language that flowed naturally for Elenora, who would become the third ordained Black woman in the Presbyterian church. Rural New Jersey was not exempt from what Black liberation had set in motion nationally. While driving, Elenora would be routinely stopped by police, mistakenly identified as Assata Shakur.
The Klan had deep roots in Monmouth County. In the 1920s it was strong enough to build Klan summer resorts, and set up marches through Jersey shore towns. A renascent New Jersey Klan was trailed and surveilled by the FBI in the mid-1960s.
In 1971 the language of the United Klans of America was also shaped by the politics of Black liberation, just negatively polarized. One of the flyers loosed on the Ivory lawn, in part, decried “those who have promoted race mixing to pollute our white race; the SDS and Black Panther revolutionaries who are working to destroy our country to achieve their fanatical goal of WORLD COMMUNISM” [capitals in original].
For their part, Citizens for Progressive Action sought something radical: authentic encounter among people. They wrote “The incorporation of multi-ethnic history into existing social studies programs is essential. It would help promote better understanding and communication between races.”
The UKA held this to be the leading edge of a plot to dominate the society of Howell Township: “Our organization is dedicated to the purpose of never permitting this take-over by the Blacks of our community occurring at any time now or in the future.” (As of 2023 Howell, NJ was 73% white.)
On August 20, 1971 a man was arrested by Howell police for burning a shoddily constructed cross. His name was not released, as the police “feared reprisals.” On the 25th the Board of Education met in closed session with Citizens for Progressive Action. The UKA had promised to disrupt the event. In the end they managed a letter writing campaign of three, and did not show up. By September, the schools had announced an in-service commemoration of Martin Luther King on January 15, and had promised to develop a multi-ethnic social studies curriculum. Patience and calm reason had prevailed.
Elenora Giddings Ivory’s course would lead her to Harvard Divinity School, the New York Council of Churches, the PC(USA) Washington Office, and the World Council of Churches. The public pursuit of justice and mercy would shape her whole career.
In a public prayer contributed to the volume African American Presbyterian Clergywomen, Elenora called for truth and understanding in much the same way she had in Howell in 1971: “Lead us from public deceptions that weaken trust / Lead us from divisions among us based on class, race, gender, or sexuality / Lead us from wealth that will not share.”
Learn more
Archives 18-1108. Elenora Giddings Ivory papers.
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