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Ocean’s Heritage, Spring/Summer 2019
Kay Harris is an Asbury Park native. After retiring from AT&T, she opened the Asbury Galleria in the city and began substitute teaching in Asbury Park High School. Kay is the driving force behind the effort to establish an Asbury Park Historical Museum (which found a temporary home on the Boardwalk over the winter months). Her book, From Amistad to the White House, takes readers to key sites in the African American quest for freedom. Here Kay remembers growing up on the West Side, daughter and granddaughter of legendary civil rights and community leaders.
I Remember . . .
Growing up on Asbury’s West Side
I
was born in 1952 and lived until after college with my parents and three siblings on Asbury’s West Side—first on Sylvan Avenue on the second and third floors of my grandmother’s two-family house, and later in a home on Bangs Avenue where my father had his medical practice. Into the 1960s, the neighborhoods where we lived were diverse. Black and white children played together (but we were not allowed to go inside the houses of white families). In many ways, mine was an all-American childhood, typical of the time. We were always outdoors playing pick-up football and baseball, jacks, and jump-rope with the neighborhood kids. We watched my mother turn the pears and apples that grew in the yard into jam and delighted in turning the petals of the roses my grandmother grew into trimming for our mud pies.
My grandfather, Lorenzo Harris, Sr. died before I was born. But he was very much alive in family stories and city lore. He came to Asbury Park in 1916, a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, looking to make a living as an artist in the city. At the time, elaborate sand sculptures were a popular tourist attraction along the shore. He came to Asbury from Atlantic City where racial prejudices got in the way of his work. He found his new home more receptive and worked as a commercial artist and in the summer, sketched portraits of tourists and amazed them with his sculptures.
Witness to change
I attended the Bangs Ave. school that my grandparents, a decade before, had worked to integrate. I graduated from Asbury Park High School in 1970, a month When Lorenzo Harris, Sr. first arrived in before the West Side riots that made na- Asbury Park to work as a sand sculpture artist, he posed as an Arab, hoping to avoid tional headlines.
Most importantly, he met and married my grandmother, Kathryn Garris. Together they made a formidable team. They were founding members of the Neptune/Asbury Park NAACP. They challenged and broke down racial barriers—from integrating area schools to opening the city’s amusements, theaters, and restaurants to African Americans.
My father lived up to his legacy
My grandparents set the bar high. But my father, Lorenzo Harris, Jr., lived up to his legacy. He attended Howard University and became a doctor who cared for more than the medical needs of the West Side. He served on the racially motivated harassment he had the board of the Boys and Girls Club for three Over these years, Asbury Park—as cities encountered in Atlantic City. decades. He set up an impromptu clinic durthroughout the country—suffered from ing the riots and organized sessions in their the lure of the suburbs. Many of the African American profeswake to air the concerns of the rioters. He was elected the first sionals and business owners who served as our role models African American member of the Asbury Park governing body moved to surrounding communities. Stores relocated from where he served from 1973 to 1985. He was a role model who the city to the new nearby suburban malls. Ocean Township continued to shape and inspire until his death at 80 in 2001. opened its own high school in 1965, and overnight Asbury Park High School lost its largest sending district. Increasingly, white families from the sending districts that remained chose private over public school.
Roots in the city
Throughout, my loyalty to and connection with the city remained. My roots are deep.
Today
Growing up, I was always “Dr. Harris’s daughter,” but it was an identity challenge worth negotiating. I am grateful for the love and lessons I received from my family. And though today I live in Neptune, the memories of the West Side stay dear to my heart. Kay Harris
