Local Spotlight: T. Thomas Fortune Foundation and

Gilda Rogers (center) with Foundation and Community members at the Cultural Center's ribbon cutting.

As the battle between historical preservation and community development plays out on Two River Theater’s Rechnitz Theater stage in August Wilson’s Radio Golf, that battle has seen triumphant real-life resolution in the preservation of the home of T. Thomas Fortune – now the T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center – located at 94 Drs. James Parker Blvd.

T. Thomas Fortune was born into slavery in Florida, in October 1856. The most influential African-American journalist of the late 19th and early 20th century, he was a deeply connected intellectual and businessman, and an essential cultivating force in what would become the Civil Rights Movement. Fortune moved to his Red Bank home—which he dubbed Maple Hall—in 1901. The house was designated in 1976 as a National Historic Landmark, one of only two National Historic Landmarks (NHL) of African-American heritage in the state.

Despite its clear historical significance, after decades of private ownership and a slow slide into disrepair, the home was slated for demolition. Struck by the importance of Fortune’s legacy, Brookdale Community College professor, journalist, activist, and Two River Theater community relations manager, Gilda Rogers, began to rally interest in Fortune and his home in 2008. Along with a group of concerned citizens, she formed the T. Thomas Fortune Project Committee in 2012, and through their efforts and the essential aid of building developer, Roger Mumford, the T. Thomas Fortune Foundation was established in 2017 and the T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center opened to the public in 2019.

“His home represents the energy of AfricanAmerican culture during that time,” Rogers says. “This was a community of accomplished black professionals who lived in Red Bank: inventors, activists, businesspeople, newspaper owners and journalists. They held recitals, owned homes, and invested in their community. They were the intelligentsia, who had risen above their circumstances, many of them having been born into slavery.”

“The home represents the lineage of AfricanAmerican history: a race of people who were striving to rise above the shackles of oppression, and had really set the tone for what that meant.”

Rogers sees the home as a physical and spiritual marker of the families that used to make up that community, a way to speak to the history of that African-American culture in Red Bank so that it will not be forgotten.

“That’s what historical preservation should be about: making connections, understanding the value of them,” Rogers says. “Things change. Nothing stays the same. But in that change, how do you still access and retain what was important and valuable to that community?” “The Cultural Center wants to be a touchstone. It has a foundation in AfricanAmerican culture, but it wants to celebrate all cultures that make up Red Bank, and recognize their importance.”

Programming for the Cultural Center salutes Red Bank’s African-American history while also celebrating all that is current in Red Bank’s cultural landscape. Exhibits and lectures have included a celebration of Count Basie, Juneteenth celebrations, Tiny Porch concert series, book clubs and book signings, explorations of Monmouth County’s interconnected African-American and Native American histories, and more. In 2021 the Cultural Center partnered with Two River’s Costume Shop for The Fabric of Our Lives: A Cultural Textile Experience, a historic presentation of African traditional cloth and dying techniques. The exhibit also was a celebration of the quilting tradition that runs deep in African American culture, featuring quilts by Storytellers In Cloth and a video of fabric artist, Bisa Butler. In early 2022, you can see the character of T. Thomas Fortune portrayed in the upcoming HBO series The Gilded Age, with Sullivan Jones as T. Thomas Fortune.

For more information about the T. Thomas Fortune Foundation and Cultural Center, programming and ways to get involved visit www.tthomasfortuneculturalcenter.org.

T. Thomas Fortune House