The T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center will open a new exhibit, “The Black Press: Stewards of Democracy,” on October 7, 2023. The opening of the new exhibit will coincide with the 167th birthday celebration of T. Thomas Fortune on October 3.
In conjunction with the exhibit, the Cultural Center has created the Fortune Tellers Docent Training Program and is currently working with a select group of high school and college students who will become tour guides for the upcoming exhibit.
The Pride flag flying at Red Bank borough hall earlier this month. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
While other locales have their knickers in a twist over LGBTQ issues, Red Bank is going all-in with a “family friendly” drag queen event in celebration of Pride month.
A selection from Middletown High School North’s awards-dominating production of Les Miserables, performed onstage at the Count Basie Center Wednesday night.
Press release from the Count Basie Center for the Arts
The 18th annual Basie Awards, honoring excellence and achievement in Monmouth County high school theatre, drew a capacity crowd to historic Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank Wednesday night.
Lynch scholar David ‘Louie’ Connolly, center, with Monsignor Joseph Rosie and RBC President Bob Abatemarco. Below, Ann Marie and Dennis Lynch. (Click to enlarge.)
Press release
Red Bank Catholic (RBC) is honored to announce the endowment of the Dennis P. Lynch ’59 Merit Scholarship. The scholarship has been generously donated by the Lynch Family, in memory of Dennis’s exemplary character and love of his alma mater.
Two years after avoiding budget cuts that threatened its existence, the school-based youth services program at Red Bank Regional High known as The Source is again facing “devastating” cuts, Superintendent Lou Moore told the school community Thursday.
In the spring of 2022 students Rhea Kripalani and Emily Luo, of Monmouth County High Tech High School in Lincroft, New Jersey, created three more tours for the Red Bank History app. The new tours include “Arts and Entertainment in Red Bank,” “Expansion of the African American Experience” and “Industry and Transportation of Red Bank.”
Phoenix Productions, the community theatre company of the Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, has announced auditions for its autumn production of ‘HAIR,’ to be presented at the Basie Center’s Hackensack Meridian Health Theatre Friday, September 23 through Sunday, September 25.
With supporters standing on the porch outside, drag queen Harmonica Sunbeam, above, entertained about two dozen families who packed a children’s story time at the Red Bank Public Library Monday evening.
A handful of protesters shouted “pedophile” and other slurs at Red Bank Public Library patrons as they arrived for a childrens’ “Drag Queen Story Hour” event Wednesday morning, library Director Elenyi Glykis told redbankgreen.
Three men have been charged with assaulting a 16-year-old Red Bank athlete in what he claimed was a racially motivated attack outside a party in Oceanport last month.
Police, however, made no allegation of racial bias in complaints filed June 10 and obtained by redbankgreen Friday.
Among those charged were two Red Bank Catholic High School football players, including Alex Brown, the quarterback who made national headlines for his onfield performance just a day after his mother died last November.
Phoenix Productions, the community theatre company of the Count Basie Center for the Arts, has announced auditions for its summer production of ‘School Of Rock – The Musical,’ being presented at the Count Basie Center for the Arts Friday, July 22 through Sunday, July 24.
National Honor Society members read to young students and gave each a care packages of books. (Click to enlarge.)
Members of the National Honor Society at Red Bank Regional High School recently completed a drive to provide Read Across America care packages to students at Red Bank borough preschools.
The project was “amazing,” said TJ Eyerman, a senior who serves as NHS president. But it also underscored the needs of the Rumson-based Bridge of Books Foundation, he said.
The members of Tower Hill Boy Scout Troop 67 of Red Bank were honored to visit Red Bank Elks Club #233 Sunday to provide service in a flag-folding ceremony.
Throughout the year, older United States flags that have become worn, dirtied or damaged are dropped off at the Elks Club.
These flags having flown with pride were honorably folded by both Elks and Scouts to be retired.
More than 100 flags were folded. (Photos courtesy of Troop 67. Click to enlarge.)
Suubi Mondesir with Fortune Foundation co-chair Gilda Rogers last month. Below, Mondesir, second from right, on a 2016 tour of the Fortune house led by builder Roger Mumford. (Photos by Chris Ern, above, and John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By CHRIS ERN
In the summer of 2016, Suubi Mondesir was a rising junior at Red Bank Regional High School when she participated in a tour of a crumbling Red Bank house.
At the time, preservationists envisioned the building on Drs. James Parker Boulevard as a cultural center in honor of its onetime owner, the civil rights journalist T. Thomas Fortune, and Mondesir was present as a participant in the Hugh N. Boyd Journalism Diversity Workshop at Rutgers University.
Flash forward to 2021: The house has been fully restored as the T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center, and Suubi (pronounced SOO-vee) manages its media outreach efforts as an intern. But it’s not just a job. Her work at the center aligns with a personal passion for social justice, inspired by Fortune’s work in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, she told redbankgreen in an interview last month.
“What he did is what I am hoping to do as well: to inspire people with my writing, and to speak truth to power,” Mondesir said.
Alexander In Ho Pane, John Franklin Cadamuro and Roman Devlin, with Fair Haven Mayor Ben Lucarelli, were cited by the borough council Monday night for recent work leading to their designation as Eagle Scouts.
The owners of Fair Haven’s Dunkin’ coffee shop presented $5,000 Monday to Compañeros de Comida, a student-run volunteer organization that has provided more than 144,000 meals to children and families in need since April, 2020.
An app-in-development reported on by redbankgreen last September is now available, offering users its first history tour of Red Bank.
The tour spotlights significant places in the early life of William ‘Count’ Basie, the world-renowned bandleader who grew up in a Mechanic Street house on the site of the one shown above.
Fewer than 240 of the 653 students who might have attended classes did so Tuesday Moore said. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Whipsawed students, parents and teachers at Red Bank Regional High are in for another schedule change starting Thursday.
With COVID-19 cases rising and absenteeism high, the Little Silver school will again suspend in-school instruction at least through December 11, Superintendent Lou Moore announced Wednesday.
After a month away, students and teachers are to begin their return to Red Bank Regional High for in-person classes Tuesday, Superintendent Lou Moore said Monday night.
Upending plans at the last minute, Red Bank Regional High will not reopen for in-person classes Monday, according to an announcement made shortly before dawn.
The Red Bank Regional building has been idle since November 2. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
After four weeks of all-remote instruction, Red Bank Regional High plans to resume in-person classes Monday, Superintendent Lou Moore said in an announcement Wednesday.