PEOPLE’S ORGANIZATION FOR PROGRESS
Bergen County Branch
P.O. Box 22505
Find out what's happening in Teaneckfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Newark, NJ 07101
Find out what's happening in Teaneckfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 27, 2012
Contact: Clifton Arrington, 201-833-8493
Clinton Lacey to be keynote speaker at October 6, 2012, event.
Teaneck native Clinton Lacey will be the featured speaker at the Fourth Annual People’s Ceremony, “Honoring the Ancestors—Continuing the Struggle for Peace and Justice,” to be held Saturday, October 6, 2012, from 12 – 2 p.m. at the memorial to enslaved Africans on the Bergen County Courthouse Lawn.
The monument was placed on the Court House Lawn by the County Freeholders in 2008, to join similar memorials to victims of the Jewish holocaust, the Armenian genocide, and the Irish potato famine. It is the only such memorial in New Jersey to the Africans who were enslaved in the Americas.
Clinton Lacey, son of the late Archie Lacey and Teaneck resident Theodora Lacey, is Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Probation for the City of New York. Lacey’s presentation will be on “Brazil and the Slave Trade.”
Also speaking will be Arnold Brown and Theodora Lacey, co-chairs of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Monument Committee. Brown is also chair of the African-American Advisory Committee to the Bergen County Board of Chosen Freeholders. Brown and Lacey will talk about plans to erect a monument to Dr. King on the Fairleigh Dickenson campus.
Music for the event will be provided by Leon Crowley, African drumming; Gail Smith, soprano; and the Youth Choir of Mt. Zion Baptist Church.
The event is presented by Bergen County Executive Kathleen A. Donovan and the Board of Chosen Freeholders, in collaboration with the Bergen County Branch of the People’s Organization for Progress; the Martin Luther King Jr., Birthday Observance Committee of Bergen County; the Anti-Racism Committee of the Unitarian Society of Ridgewood; the Social Justice Committee of the Central Unitarian Church; and the Bergen County Y.W.C.A. It is free, and open to the public. For information, contact Clifton Arrington at 201-833-8493 or marbwhite@aol.com
