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SPEAKING OUT: Rich Swingle, left, takes on the character of anti-slavery Quaker John Woolman, shown in the only known drawing of him, at a performance of “I Dreamed I Was Free” at Morven on November 2.
By Anne Levin
More than a century before the Civil War, the topic of slavery was being debated in the colonies. On the floor of the Philadelphia Yearly Quaker Meeting of 1758, a man named John Woolman addressed his fellow Quakers with “Some Consideration of the Keeping of Negroes,” leading the Society of Friends to recognize the evil of slavery and form a committee to visit those Friends who kept slaves.
Woolman’s efforts are the basis of I Dreamed I Was Free, a one-man play to be performed by its author Rich Swingle on Thursday, November 2, at the annual fundraising gala of the Witherspoon-Jackson Historical and Cultural Society (WJHCS). The public is invited to attend the event, taking place at Morven Museum and Garden, 55 Stockton Street, at 7:30 p.m.
Swingle is a writer and actor who has performed the play off-Broadway; in Norway, Germany, Canada; and throughout the U.S. and the U.K. He will be familiar to Princeton University architecture students from the workshops he co-leads for (Town Topics shareholder) J. Robert Hillier’s graduate seminar, “Starting, Building, and Operating Your Own Architecture Firm.”
The theme of I Dreamed I Was Free is a natural tie-in for celebrating the WJHCS, which longtime neighborhood resident and historian Shirley Satterfield started nearly a decade ago. The nonprofit is “dedicated to the research, preservation, understanding, appreciation, and celebration of the rich and proud history of African Americans in Princeton,” said Satterfield, who saw a need for such an organization after being asked to join the Historical Society of Princeton (HSP) in 1990.
“It was wonderful, but I didn’t hear anything about ethnic people in Princeton,” she said. “Gail Stern, who was the director at the time, realized we needed to talk about more than white history in Princeton.”
The closely-knit Witherspoon-Jackson community was completely segregated from Princeton, and thus became totally self-sufficient with its own shops, services, schools, and four churches. The men worked mainly at Princeton University and the Prospect Avenue eating clubs, while the women worked as domestics in the homes of affluent Princetonians. Many of their offspring went on to successful careers in several professions.
At the HSP, Satterfield helped create an exhibit about Italian Americans in Princeton, followed by a show focused on African Americans in the town. “I worked with the University to do research for the exhibit. After we had it, I said, ‘We can’t stop now. We need to do a walking tour,’” Satterfield recalls. “Jacqui Swain worked with me and we started the tours. They went very well, but I said, ‘We can’t stop here.’ So seven other people met in my dining room, and we worked to help create the Witherspoon-Jackson Historic District. Again, I said, We can’t stop here,’ and that’s when we started the Witherspoon-Jackson Historical and Cultural Society.”
Since then, the nonprofit has created a self-guided “Heritage Tour” of 29 historic sites in the neighborhood that are to be marked by stainless steel plaques created by Studio Hillier. Four have yet to be installed, on buildings that are under construction or renovation.
WJHCS has partnered with Elizabeth Romanaux on the Einstein Museum of Science, a pop-up museum that has been traveling to libraries and schools to present Albert Einstein’s life as a humanitarian. Princeton Public Library recently hosted the exhibit.
“A lot of people know Einstein as a scientist, but they also need to know him as a humanitarian,” Satterfield said. “He went to Lincoln University [the first degree-granting Black college in the U.S.] as a visiting professor. He used to walk around the neighborhood and sit on people’s porches, talking to them.”
Previous fundraisers for the WJCHS have presented Calvin Alexander Ramsey, author of Green Book; and Princeton native Todd Marrow III, an editor of Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s America Awakened. That event was moderated by Marrow’s childhood friend, Pennington School history professor Jason Harding.
The upcoming I Dreamed I Was Free “challenges audience members of all ages not to settle for what our culture declares to be the norm, challenging them not to let the curse of racism fall upon the next generation,” according to a press release.
A “Hot Seat,” which follows the performance, allows Swingle — still in character as John Woolman — to answer questions that come up for any characters he performs in the play.
“This can be as powerful as the play itself, allowing audience members to explore the themes that stirred them,” reads the release.
Tickets are $25 for students, $50 general admission, $75 for preferred seating, and $100 for VIP front row seating. Sponsorships are also available. For tickets or more information, email Emily at admin@studiohillier.com or call her at (609) 688-9999 ext. 201.
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