Cities - Ledger - Bob Braun: A new age begins in Newark . . . just like all the ones before

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Published in the Star-Ledger, Thursday, May 11,m 2006

Bob Braun

A new age begins in Newark ... just like all the ones before

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Another new day. Another new era. A young, vigorous reformer takes the reins of leadership from an old, tired re gime that was, not too long ago -- another new day. Another new era.

"Today, Newark, New Jersey, has embraced change," said Cory Booker in victory, a reprise of what Kenneth Gibson said in 1970 and Sharpe James said in 1986.

But, a few hours earlier, the state Supreme Court, once the last, best hope of cities and their residents, ruled -- again -- that the state could freeze aid to schools in its poorest districts, including Newark, because of New Jersey's budget problems.

Another new day? Another new era?

And hours before that, when the day was really new, Kelvin Kel ley and Hassan Ferguson, 16-year-olds who had been friends since boyhood, were shot and killed in the city's Central Ward.

The 36th and 37th homicide victims in a year not even half over.

"Madness," said Marion Bolden, the city's school superintendent.

Another new day.

But not, sadly, a new era.

"There just seems to be a cloud over our heads, even when there's good news," says Clement A. Price, the Rutgers-Newark historian.

He says this as he looks out of the window of his home in Lincoln Park where the junkies and drunks gather, as they have gathered for decades, despite his best efforts, and those of others, to persuade someone to care.

"That wouldn't be allowed in Chicago or Boston," he says.

Well, maybe. But crime happens in Boston and Chicago. In the bad sections.

But here's what is odd about Newark -- no, odd, really, about New Jersey. Newark is the bad sec tion. The bad section of the state.

The place to be avoided -- along with Camden and Paterson and Trenton and Elizabeth and the parts of Jersey City that don't face the river.

New Jersey hates its cities. Too strong?

No, I don't think so. Months after Gibson became mayor of Newark and the television lights still shone on him as the embodiment of another new era, the state Legislature defeated the confirmation of an education commissioner, Carl Marburger.

Why? Because Marburger said the obvious. Our schools are badly segregated because they're tied to municipal lines. White suburbs, black cities.

A state senator from Essex County, Ralph De Rose -- a Democrat -- stood up and said that if black kids and white kids were "forced" to learn together, both would suffer.

So, what's happened since? Are the schools integrated? No, that's no longer a state (or federal) priority. Here in New Jersey, we replaced desegregation with guilt gelt. Money, money, money, money sent to the schools. Until it wasn't -- because we ran out, at least partially because we gave tax breaks to people decidedly not living in cities.

Someone's not paying attention to how money is spent, legislators say now. But the state runs the three largest school districts. How could the state not pay attention?

Easy, because in New Jersey, cities are invisible. That's why we built highways around them -- 78, 280, work the numbers -- so they don't have to be seen.

Highways that do, however, bring in the handguns, many from Virginia and other Southern states, that get to the population of children in places like Newark. So they can pop other children, like Kelvin Kelley and Hassan Ferguson.

So much upset -- so much political uproar -- about the sale of a Newark port facility to Dubai be cause of the fear of terrorism. What about terror killing our children with loose guns and drugs on the streets of Newark? For the families of those dead children, the terror alert -- the living-in-an-invisible- city terror alert -- is red now. Has been.

Booker is a smart young man who wants to do good. Gibson was a smart young man who wanted to do good. James was a smart young man who wanted to do good.

I hope Booker succeeds, but he won't -- can't -- unless he gets Newark into the face of our governor. Unless he makes Newark and other cities a presence in the Legislature.

Until all of us recognize that when a legislator says, as one did the other day, that paying special attention to city schools is "divisive," all of us -- city, suburban, rural residents -- see it for what it is. Code. Awful code.

Booker has a chance. Although it was used against him by local pols, he's been other places, seen other things, lived in other types of towns. Maybe he can help teach all of us, no matter where we live in New Jersey, that cities and their children are worth saving, worth caring about, worth sacrificing for.

What a new day -- what a new era -- that would be.

Bob Braun's columns appear Monday and Thursday. He may be reached at (973) 392-4281 or bobbraun@verizon.net

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