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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, again, everyone. Attention Peacocks fans, after that Cinderella run of the St. Peter's basketball team. We are going to have the president of St. Peter's College on later this hour. First, let's talk about integration in the suburbs, in housing, in education, in the economy, and having different groups of people come together rather than see their interests as competing. How about a wealth gap equalizer program to help build more equality in a place that's already diverse. Pie in the sky? Well, not if you live in the Maplewood, South Orange area of New Jersey. That's just west of Newark, for those of you not familiar.

There's an event there tonight that our own Nancy Solomon will be moderating to recognize the 25th anniversary of the South Orange-Maplewood Community Coalition on race. They've had their challenges, they've had their successes, let's talk about some, and what other suburbs and maybe even cities can learn from this area that's been trying to be very intentional about doing integration right for at least a quarter-century. Joining me now in conjunction with tonight's event are Nancy Gagnier, Executive Director of the South Orange-Maplewood Coalition on Race, and Audrey Rowe, the group's program director. Nancy and Audrey, thanks for joining us. Welcome to WNYC.

Audrey Rowe: Thank you for having us, Brian.

Nancy Gagnier: Thank you for having us.

Brian Lehrer: Could you talk first for everyone in the audience not from the South Orange-Maplewood area, about how suburban it is, and how diverse in broad demographic terms? Nancy, you want to start?

Nancy Gagnier: Sure. We are what is called a first suburb of Newark, New Jersey. If that's an urban center, it has inner-ring suburbs, and Maplewood and South Orange are first suburbs meaning right outside the inner ring. We have neighbors that are majority white, that have high Asian populations, high Latinx populations. We have neighbors that are majority people of color. In our community, we're about 56% white, 34% African-American, 4% Hispanic, 3% Asian, over 18% are foreign-born. We have a broad socio-economic diversity as well.

Brian Lehrer: How integrated, Audrey, versus simply diverse would you say the housing and the schools are or by any other measure of integration you want to use?

Audrey Rowe: It depends upon how you look at the numbers, Brian. We have found that if you look at the numbers, generally, we seem to be very integrated. When you look at our neighbors, we actually are. When you peel back the onion and start to look more specifically, we have found that there are pockets in our community where we are not as integrated as we aspire to be. That situation has found its way into our school district, and we have found through our own investigation, actually doing some very deep research that you have to look not just at the schools, but you have to look actually at individual classrooms to actually see how integrated you are.

Brian Lehrer: Why do we say Maplewood South Orange in one breath at all? We don't usually learn two adjacent towns or cities together like that as if they were one, and certainly in terms of school districts New Jersey is famous for breaking up into like different school districts in that geographically small state. Is that an intentional framing or is it what people came up with?

Audrey Rowe: It's actually a reality. At one point, we were one community. I believe it was in 1922 that Maplewood broke away separately. We were one community at one time. Now we still share a high school, and actually we are starting to come together in many ways in terms of our public services. We have our fire departments working to come back together for economic reasons as well. We often say that we are two towns but one community because we are just a matter of crossing the street in many cases and we do work together as a single community.

Brian Lehrer: All right, Nancy, tell us some of the origin story of your group, the South Orange-Maplewood Coalition on Race. You're celebrating your 25th anniversary at the event tonight. We'll tell people later how they can find out more, attend. That means something happened in 1997 to spark the founding. What was going on in 1997?

Nancy Gagnier: There were a lot of things happening in '97 and probably even before that. A lot of concern about housing values, the quality of the schools, dramatic demographic change, and a lot of different individuals and community groups were thinking about this, talking about this, and they coalesced into one larger group that became a full-fledged non-profit with municipal support. This work started with a theory of intentional racial integration. We've never abandoned that concept. It runs through everything that we do. We expanded the model that was very focused on housing and schools early on, we still are, but we have included a deeper focus on systemic racism and the need to get responsive change from local institutions.

Brian Lehrer: What about you two, if I may ask, how long have you each been in the area and what got you involved in the coalition? Audrey, you want to start?

Audrey Rowe: Sure, Brian. I have lived in Maplewood for 40 years, and half of that time, 20 years, I've actually worked with the coalition. I actually started as a volunteer. After I left my corporate job and had more time in my life, this is a passion of mine, and there was an agreement between the organization and myself that I would work more consistently and so I came on to the coalition as program director in 2000, actually. I've been working in that job part-time if there's any such animal as part-time, [laughs] for the last 20 years.

Brian Lehrer: Nancy, how about you?

Nancy Gagnier: My parents grew up here and I lived here as a child. I did not return until 1997 at the birth of this organization, with my husband and two children. We eventually had a third child. I was very concerned about the conversations that I was hearing from my neighbors. Many of us said we moved here for the diversity, that certainly described my family, but I saw a lot of tension and conflict especially around how we integrate schools.

I challenged some board members about developing stable solutions. I kept seeing them redraw a school district's own lines. It did not seem like a stable solution. Every time I challenged them, somebody would come to me and say, "You need to run for school board," so I did. I did serve on the Board of Education for a few years, and I was very vested in racial equity work. Eventually, in 2008, I came on as the Executive Director of the Community Coalition on Race.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take some phone calls, especially from the South Orange-Maplewood area. If you would like to call in and join this conversation for the next few minutes with a comment or a question 212-433-WNYC. Listeners, what's your family's place in the community effort to have an integrated, not just diverse, New Jersey suburb? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. What do you think other suburbs or even cities can learn from your community's successes, or challenges, or strategies? 212-433-9692, or ask our guests the executive director or the program director of the South Orange-Maplewood Coalition on Race a question.

On this occasion of their 25th anniversary with the event, virtual event, by the way, tonight, making it even easy to attend, we'll give you the information, scheduled for tonight. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Audrey, it looks like the coalition has a variety of intentional strategies designed to promote integration and reduce the achievement gap in schools. Would you like to talk about one or two of the programs that you think are the most important or innovative?

Audrey Rowe: Sure. In terms of innovation, I think one of the programs that we have used as a basic strategy is something we call integration through the arts. This builds on the fact that many times when you talk about integration people start to look at their shoes, they feel very uncomfortable. We want to create an environment where it's organic, so we bring people together around things that they share. If you love music, and I love music, and we are both enjoying a performance or participating in a performance, then that creates a natural environment for us to get to know one another.

We also have put together programs to help families Black and non-Black to work around the whole issue of racism. We've put together a program called Talking to Your Children About Race. It's a way to help parents know starting from preschooler up through high school, how you have these conversations to help your children understand the concept and develop what we hope is positive attitudes toward integration. The third one that I would mention is the one that we are very excited about currently, is the Wealth Gap Equalizer Loan where we are putting some effort, not only verbally and in intent, but with finances to help equalize the possibility that families of color, Black families, will be able to move into our community given a lot of the barriers that have historically been put in the way of Black and Hispanic people.

Brian Lehrer: Tell us a little bit more about that. How does the Wealth Gap Equalizer Loan Program work? Where does the money come from and how do people apply?

Audrey Rowe: Okay, the program is based on the premise that there's a wealth gap, a racial wealth gap, that exists across entire nation. We know that in New Jersey, the possibility of having additional wealth after taking care of your basic expenses for white people, they have 50 times more the wealth than Black people in New Jersey. That being said, when you come to invest in a home, which is the largest asset that we all have, there's not the level of competition financially, the ability to compete. You can possibly make the down payment, but you can't compete when there's bidding wars, or you may not be able to take care of the additional expenses that are involved in purchasing a home.

The Wealth Gap Equalizer Loan provides additional money, $7,500 interest-free that can be paid back in five years to Black families who are looking to move into the community to help them be able to compete in that market. To actually qualify, you have to self-identify as Black or non-white Hispanic. You have to be buying a home in Maplewood and South Orange. You have to be pre-approved for your loan. We are looking to help people who are very close but don't have the additional funds to actually get them over the hump.

We're at the point now where we're just launching the loan. The monies that we have been supplied through both our towns of Maplewood and South Orange. We are, of course, looking to have additional funds so that we'll be able to provide more loans. Right now we're in a pilot mode and we hope to have proof of concept that then allows us to go out and solicit more supporters to be able to offer more loans to qualifying people.

Brian Lehrer: That's exciting. Let's take a phone call. Jessy in South Orange, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jesse.

Jesse: Hi, Brian, how are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good.

Jesse: We moved to South Orange in 2019 and we live right across the street from an elementary school. We have three children, one just entered kindergarten this past year. We learned about the intentional integration program and are now attending a school that's not across the street from us. Having reviewed it and trying to stay away from naming names and all of that, have embraced it and the school is wonderful. We have no complaints about that. One of the challenges though, is we have to drive every day to get our kids to school and take up our child. There's no bus service available.

As far as I understand there won't be, and as we continue to send kids to areas outside of their own neighborhood, I'm just curious if there's any plans or if there's any future resources to get people to be able to manage this. I don't know if there was an assumption that everybody can drive their kids to school every day. As more kids begin to attend, the traffic in the parking outside of schools is crazy. All in all, it's been a challenge but definitely in favor of increasing equity. The logistical part of it though seems to be a little bit of a mess.

Brian Lehrer: Nancy, can you take that?

Nancy Gagnier: Yes, absolutely. That's such a good question. We did have our district superintendent Dr. Taylor address some of these questions with realtors who are selling homes to people and people are questioning, "Where will my children go to school? Will they go to the neighborhood school down the street?" There is a presentation on the South Orange Maplewood School District website that was given about a week ago where you can find out more information about that. One of the big questions is access and transportation. We're glad to hear residents like you, Jesse, who are supportive of an intentional integration plan.

This has been so long in the making and we're excited that this is happening. We know that there are going to be some pain points for people in terms of giving up the school down the street and having to get their kids to another part of town. I think we're going to go through some growing pains and have a good, solid stable outcome to our intentional integration goal. Transportation is something that definitely needs to be taken up with the School District.

Brian Lehrer: I'm curious along those lines, Nancy, do you have gifted and talented programs in the schools or any other tracking that in many places winds being de facto segregation?

Nancy Gagnier: That's a good question too. It's been a loaded question for us over the course of the 25 years. We as an organization advocated for many years for a reduction in academic tracking because we saw what it produced in the middle schools and the high school, meaning right now the intentional integration plan that we are talking about is actually for the elementary schools. The middle schools have all the kids, so de facto, they should be integrated, but if you look at classrooms over time, they weren't. There was a concern that tracking or leveling or gifted programs was a contributor to that fact. We advocated for providing appropriate supports all along the way so that all kids have access. There's equity for all children and all children have access to advanced coursework if they wanted.

Brian Lehrer: Audrey, you were talking before about some of the biggest successes in your decades now with the South Orange Maplewood Coalition on Race. How about some of the biggest challenges? Maybe that last caller and my follow-up question touched on maybe the biggest one or one of the biggest ones, you tell us.

Audrey Rowe: I think the challenge that we tend to face no matter what the issue tends to be is being able to put into practice our aspirations. All of the concepts sound great until it starts to affect our kid or our neighborhood and the acknowledgement that we all have, that there is an investment that we have to make if we're actually going to achieve true integration and to work against racism. I think that that challenge exists not only for us, but for the entire country, hence why we have such a struggle with the whole idea that the actual practice is much more difficult than embracing the concept.

Brian Lehrer: Allison Maplewood, you're on WNYC. Hi, Alice?

Allison Maplewood: Hi. I live in the community. I think it's a wonderful community. We're integrated. People are open. Everyone coming here. There's a family from Afghanistan now that everyone has pitched in to support. When people start saying intentional integration, yes, it sounds great on paper but when you have to take a child from one edge of town, like the Seth Boyden School, which is on the edge of Newark, put them in a bus for maybe an hour to go to the other side of town and then bring them back home, I think it's wrong. I just think it's not fair to the kids. It's not fair to anybody. It's not fair to the kids that are going to another school.

This is the biggest issue and there's traffic in the community. Maybe look at taking those tax dollars that you can save and putting it into the school that needs it, support systems playgrounds, after school activities, make it filled with supportive activities for the children so that they aren't just thrown on a bus so that it sounds like you did something and you're taken to another part of town and you're sitting there for an hour. No kid wants to be on a bus for an hour.

Brian Lehrer: Alice, what would you say to some people who might respond that's the easy way out? Not that it's easy but that it perpetuates segregation and we owe our kids, we owe the future something more.

Allison Maplewood: Yes. Maybe there's some other types of programs that you can integrate. Maybe there are field trips. Maybe there are lectures at the schools, but I just can't see that working and I don't think any anyone here that I know in this community would say that they want to keep kids separate because they're racist. I just think that there's the practical aspects and there are other ways you have to think out of the box, how can we get these kids together? Maybe activities on the weekend, sports, all kinds of things, but sometimes things just don't work.

Brian Lehrer: Alice, thank you very much. Nancy, how much is that a conversation that defines the intentional attempt to integrate the schools? I don't know that it could take an hour to go from one part of Maplewood South Orange to another, but maybe it can, I don't know. I don't live there.

Nancy Gagnier: I don't think that it takes an hour to get across town and our organization does not want to see any portion of the community and I mean geographic or identity wise burdened more than any other part of the community. I am certain that the school district is working to make sure that doesn't happen either. The fact is that as two modest sized suburbs, most homes are almost equidistant from three elementary schools. There is certainly a way to make sure that people have access to an elementary school that does not cause them to have to travel for that amount of time.

There is also a question of making sure that families who may have to travel a little further that their children also have access to after school activities. We don't want people going to another part of the community and then not really feeling engaged in that school because they live too far away. Intentional integration is not just mixing people up and walking away and saying, "Now we got it." It's a lot more than that.

Brian Lehrer: Audrey, we're almost out of time. I'm going to give you the last word on that caller if you want, or maybe the biggest lesson that other suburbs that are interested in more intentional integration can learn from South Orange Maplewood and tell people how they can attend the virtual 25th anniversary event tonight of your group.

Audrey Rowe: I would say in turn terms of our sister communities here in New Jersey or across the nation, in terms of the work that we do we would say that you need to first examine your community and find out what the tension points are. While we work to be an example, we would not recommend that people use us in a cookie cutter fashion. I think that it depends upon the mix. What are the demographics in your particular community? What are the issues that are facing your community?

Then get a cross section people to come together to find ways to try to address them. In terms of Hollis and also Jesse, who've talked about the school issues, one of the things that makes our community, I think, exceptional is that when we have problems like this, we don't walk away. While we don't have a solution right now to the busing and transportation issue, I can assure you that people here in Maplewood South Orange will come together and figure out in terms of key stakeholders, how we can make it less of an issue, less of a problem for any segment of our residents.

Brian Lehrer: Tonight's event.

Audrey Rowe: Yes, tonight you can join our virtual event and I'm call my partner Nancy in on this to help me with the actual details. If you go to our website, communitycoalitiononrace.org, this will be one of the featured events. As you click on the event, which is The Pursuit of Integration, you will go onto a page that will allow you to actually click and register. You will need to register your own name and email and then you will be sent a link sometimes today that will allow you to join us. We'll actually start at 7:30 tonight and we're hoping that many of you will come and help us celebrate. Thank you so much.

Brian Lehrer: Moderated by our own Nancy Solomon, who's done so much to lead our New Jersey coverage for years, right?

Audrey Rowe: Yes.

Nancy Gagnier: We're happy to have her.

Brian Lehrer: Congratulations on 25 years. Thank you so much for joining us.

Audrey Rowe: Thank you so much for having us.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, speaking of New Jersey, and speaking of congratulations, coming up after this break we're going to have, I'll call him the head peacock, the president of St. Peter's university after that Cinderella run for their men's basketball team. Stay with us.

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