- We can't understand the racial disparities today without going back to slavery and its lasting legacy, without going back to the founding of the colony, when each English settling family was given 150 acres off the bat for coming to the colony and an additional 150 acres for every enslaved person they brought with them.

- We have seen it historically, since 1844, with the over-incarceration of African Americans in our police system.

We've also seen it with the over-enforcement of restricting the right to vote for persons of color, Black people in particular.

We've seen it in maternal health, where Black women are more than three times more likely to die while giving birth, which should be an exciting time in their life, in the state of New Jersey, because their voices have not been heard.

- When we look at Black Americans in the state of New Jersey, we relied on what we consider now white allyship, right, back then, white sympathizers, to kind of move our cause forward.

And when people find out how endemic it is, then it's like, "Well, we didn't realize this was so significant."

- We have to create those jobs and those opportunities for ourselves.

If we wait for the other guy to do it, it might not happen as quickly.

And I think if we do it, it's done with love.

It's done with understanding, and it's great.

And it empowers the community.

It's like Blacks opening banks.

They can't get loans, so you open your own banks.

[inspiring music] - The Lost Souls is a nonprofit grassroot organization that seeks to uncover the names and histories of 137 freed and enslaved Blacks who were sent south as a result of an evil slaver ring.

Jacob Van Wickle was a judge here in Middlesex County.

He was a prominent citizen here in the current East Brunswick area.

And he had what was referred to as a slave castle, if you will, which was used by the slave ring.

- The 1804 Gradual Emancipation Act actually promised freedom to children born on and after July 4th of that year.

So if that child was a female child, she would be free at 21.

If the child was a male child, he would be free at 25.

However, what Van Wickle did was he kind of snuffed that promise from parents, who they themselves wouldn't be free, but their dreams and hope for their children, and to see that freedom, it was pretty much extinguished as a result of this scheme.

- He had wealth, he had prominence through his position, and he used those tools.

- He would lie and say that they had consent to be sold, which they didn't.

Then they were sold from New Jersey to Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina, which were more horrific than New Jersey was in terms of slavery.

- The scheme worked as a result of a collaboration between Van Wickle and his brother-in-law Charles Morgan, who owned a plantation in Point Coupee, Louisiana.

He came up and he purchased slaves for as little as $150, whereas in Louisiana, that individual that he sought to purchase would've cost $800.

So it would've been cheaper to acquire them up here.

- Judge Van Wickle was just an extreme example of a profiteer.

And so when we think about the justification for slavery, which was for people to make money, Judge Van Wickle used every excuse, example, whatever way he could manipulate the law, to make sure that he benefited financially.

- It was very much so illegal, simply because of the way they secured these souls.

They falsified documents called certificates of removal.

They said that these individuals actually gave permission to go.

In reality, they didn't.

- He had a syndicate of people who worked with him, and then they would lie, manipulate.

They would take little babies.

That was against the law at the time, for you to take little babies.

People were supposed to be over 21 to consent.

He did every possible thing he could do to manipulate the law, to make sure that people supposedly agreed to be sold, which they didn't.

- We know that because these enslaved people and free people resisted once they got to Louisiana.

We know that they resisted prior to even going to Louisiana in the vessels.

They were pushing back against the crew that was putting them in the belly of the vessel.

- [Toni] Sloops, I've been informed, is the technical term for the ships.

And they primarily sailed out of the Perth Amboy, New Jersey area, which still is an area today where they are building a recognition of the role that the Perth Amboy area played as being a deportation location for the the continental slave trade, not the Atlanta crossing slave trade.

So they sold literally south and around into the Louisiana area.

- According to one of the passengers, his name was James E. Lane, He said that they moaned, they groaned, and they actually verbalized that they were brought to Louisiana against their will.

- These were not modern ships by any stretch of the imagination, and they were not built for human transportation.

Also, it's important to note that at that period of time in our country, Black Americans were not considered human beings.

They were considered three fifths of a human being.

- As been documented or recorded for the conditions on the middle passage.

I'm pretty sure it's the same.

I'm pretty sure the lost souls probably wanted to jump off.

Right?

So there is documented history that the Schoharie, one of the four vessels, actually was boarded up to prevent enslaved people, even free people, who are getting ready to be sent south, prevent them from jumping off the ship.

- It's been challenging for our historian to collect information about families, because the manifests were manifest more along the line of what you would use for produce, farm animals, chattel, if you will.

So that's how the ships were built.

That's what they were constructed for.

So it was a very, very difficult trip for any human being to make, and primarily in the hold, because they didn't want anyone to see that they were carrying human cargo.

- 42 of the 137 of the lost souls were children.

The youngest was two days old.

His name was Joseph.

Mothers went with their children.

I'm a mother, and I would do anything for my child, even if that meant going to a place of uncertainty with them, just as long as I'm with them, I'm fine.

But we know, Morgan knew, that those families would not have been kept together.

And that was the reality.

- This is a challenge for me to talk about, the part of motherhood, because I am a mother and a grandmother.

And if it shows, I can't help it.

It is a part of our human history.

It is a part of our, a deeply rooted part, of Black American history, the relationship of the family and the bonds of the family that were broken during the period of slavery in this country.

- The state actually passed a law that said that they would hold any individual accountable who engaged in this interstate slave trade that was prominent during this time period.

Judge Jacob Van Wickle actually denied it.

He put it in newspapers to kind of defend his name, saying that he did not send individuals south, he wasn't a part of a slave ring, these individuals agreed to go south.

So he kind of like absolved himself from any nefarious activities.

Absolutely nothing happened to Judge Van Wickle.

He continued to hold an office of public trust.

- When the research was uncovered about the illegal slave ring that occurred here, a bunch of concerned citizens were like, well, you know, there's a street named after Van Wickle, and shouldn't the street name be changed?

So there was a concerted effort by the citizens of East Brunswick to ask for that street name to be changed.

It has not been changed.

There was a petition made to the town council.

We understand how things work at the government level.

The wheels turn a little bit slowly, but in the process of not getting the street name changed, we started to form a grassroots effort to consider actually building the memorial to the lost souls.

The other part of our mission is to make sure that this history of these individuals, of our citizens of the state, continues to be researched, and the history becomes part of the education process throughout the New Jersey school system.

The Lost Souls Public Memorial Project started about five years ago by a small band of concerned citizens here in East Brunswick, as well as the extended area into other parts of Middlesex County, as well as Somerset County.

[gentle music] [birds chirping] - Libation is a ceremony that's done to honor our ancestors, and you do libation, you use water.

And we're gonna pour the water on these plants, and call the name of different ancestors.

There's an Akan word, Ashe, which is comparable to Amen.

So at different times, I will say the word Ashe, in order to acknowledge the ancestors who I'm calling.

Millions of Africans who were captured in the interior of Africa, who were shackled around the throat, the wrists, the waist, and the ankles, and marched hundreds of miles into the slave dungeons.

For the millions of Africans' names that we don't know, can we say Ashe?

[gentle music] - We feel that the way to address these racial disparities today is to go at the root of the harm in a number of different areas.

When we're looking at housing, we wanna make sure that Black people are able to get homes and that when they get homes, they get fair appraisals for their home, so that they're able to gain equity and gain wealth.

In the criminal justice system, we want to, through our 150 Years is Enough Campaign, close our state's three youth prisons and invest a hundred million dollars into the communities most impacted by youth incarceration.

With our democracy and justice work, we wanna make sure that incarcerated people have the right to vote.

Through our 1844 No More Campaign, we were able to restore the right to vote to 83,000 people on probation and parole.

We wanna make sure that incarcerated people also have that same right.

And overall, we can't repair the harm without looking at it and addressing it and realizing that it was created by design and thus by design we need to intentionally design policies to repair it.

And so that speaks to reparations.

- When I first introduced the Reparations Task Force Bill, and it's a task force, it's a group of thought leaders from around the state coming together to talk about what new Jersey's role has been in slavery, also who was impacted.

How many people who are still here in New Jersey, families, Black families in particular, because they were harmed.

They were sold into slavery, born into slavery, and not allowed to live in the very houses that they built, not allowed to eat or earn a fair price for the very farms that they tilled the soil on.

So it's important that we know the harms, have one repository, and not have different spots of information.

And then we can work with the federal government and partner with them for repair.

Bail reform happened because of a report saying this was a needed action that had to be taken.

Juvenile justice reform happened because we had a task force, gave us a report.

Housing reforms happened because we have a focus, a task force, that gives us a report.

And here's how you are very prescriptive in making the change for a repair.

- After slavery, how an early form of share cropping called cottaging took hold here in New Jersey, which then be begat racially restrictive covenants, which be begat redlining, predatory lending, and foreclosure practices during the Great Recession, which still have impact today, with New Jersey consistently having the highest foreclosure rate in the nation.

And so we can't just look at the racial disparities in isolation, but look at from our very founding, Black communities have been divested from property and resources, while those things were given wholesale to white communities at the same time.

- When you actually look at the wealth disparities gap for Black folks and non-minorities in the state of New Jersey, in savings, less than a hundred dollars.

And that is the voice that we as the Black Legislative Caucus bring to the 120-member legislative body: the powerlessness of not having enough money to make ends meet, trading fair wages, raising the minimum wage, especially for those in low-level, low service paying jobs.

It's all important to keep the family unit together and to provide an opportunity to thrive.

- We have the highest Black to white infant mortality disparity rate in the nation.

We have the highest Black to white youth and adult incarceration disparity rates in the nation.

We have the sixth most segregated schools for Black students in the nation.

And we have one of the highest racial wealth gaps in the country of over $300,000, where the net wealth for a white family at the median is about $322,500, but only $17,700 for a Black family.

When we say Black lives matter, for us at the institute, it means, okay, Black lives matter.

What investments are you willing to make in Black lives?

Are you willing for example, to support Black home ownership in communities that have historically been divested for it?

Are we gonna cancel student loans that have disproportionately impacted students of color?

Are we gonna finally close our youth prisons and use money to put back in the communities that have been devastated by youth incarceration for years?

We always wanna be number one in New Jersey, but in New Jersey, we're number one for a very pernicious reason, where a young person, a Black young person, is about 18 times more likely to end up in a youth facility than their white counterpart, which is the highest racial disparity rate in the nation.

And this is so even though data shows that Black and white youth commit most offenses at similar rates.

And so what does that break down to?

That means that we're able to treat certain kids as kids, mainly our white young people, and over-criminalizing our Black young people and other kids of color.

And I have to tell the story of the Boarding Town School.

The Boarding Town School was an elite state-run boarding school opened by formerly enslaved Reverend Walter Rice in the late 1800s that ran for half a century as new Jersey's elite Tuskegee of the North, as it was known.

It was a school for preparation of young Black students for vocational trade professions as well as careers in law, teaching, et cetera, and was visited by such luminaries as W. E. B.

Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, Eleanor Roosevelt, just to name a few.

After the end of school segregation, the school attempted to integrate, failed to do so, and closed.

And so what do we think now sits on the land that was once home to the Tuskegee of the North?

Hayes, New Jersey's girls' youth prison.

And across the street sits JMSF, the state's most secure youth prison for boys.

Here in New Jersey, we really have a literal representation of the school-to-prison pipeline realized.

And that ties into the investments that the state has made in our young people.

This lack of investment in their uplift has led to us having the worst Black to white youth incarceration disparity rate in the nation, has led to new Jersey's spending upwards of $600,000 to incarcerate each of our less than 100 young people incarcerated in our state's three youth prisons, which are about 80% empty.

It has led to a recidivism rate, where within three years of release from these youth facilities, about a quarter of young people are ending up right back within them.

And so our campaign, our 150 Years is Enough Campaign, launched on the 150-year anniversary of Jamesburg, the state's largest youth prison for boys, is really aimed at naming the investment that the state needs to make by closing our broken and failed youth prisons and reinvesting meaningfully into communities.

- I'm most proud to restore the right to vote to persons on probation and parole who had not had the right to vote since 1844.

I've seen tears in the eyes of grown men and women who never thought they would have the right to vote.

That right was taken from them and were hopeless.

It's these little pieces that move the needle that keeps us moving forward for repair and having an open mind and being progressive in that regard.

But part of it is education.

Part of it's taking time to talk.

So while we've been working this bill for over four years, I've gained momentum.

I've gained more alliances in this process, and that's how good legislation is made.

And that's how change happens.

♪ Cotton needs picking so bad ♪ I remember, I don't know, so vividly singing ♪ Cotton needs picking so bad ♪ The crazy thing was that I was the only Black kid in the class.

My name is Danielia Cotton.

♪ All over this land ♪ It's almost too crazy to be true.

♪ Yesterday and tomorrow ♪ ♪ I'm being genuine ♪ ♪ I feel like grace is a race ♪ ♪ With no finish line ♪ ♪ I thought the revolution wouldn't be televised ♪ ♪ It seems color still isn't getting recognized ♪ ♪ Can you sympathize ♪ ♪ Right or wrong, you gotta know who you're fighting for ♪ ♪ And speak your mind every time in this solid war ♪ ♪ We're all human, meaning ♪ ♪ We still suffer but remember ♪ ♪ Even broken crayons still color ♪ [music playing softly] ♪ Yesterday and tomorrow ♪ I'm a musician, so I think rock and roll, when people ask me why, it's because I grew up in Hopewell, and I had so many feelings about why did my mom move here?

Why would you put us in a town where we'd be the only Black people?

Why are they this way, being called pole chucker, just constantly dealing with it at school.

My mother was basically like, "Are you bleeding?

Then get up, keep walking," you know?

And you were like, "You're so insensitive."

♪ You talk about it like it ain't nothing ♪ ♪ You wouldn't for a minute want a life ♪ ♪ Walking in my shoes ♪ The way I got out, the way that I survived, was watching old movies, but that was like Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire.

But when I'd put on headphones, that was Donny Hathaway.

That was Chaka Khan.

That was Phyllis Hyman, who I loved.

♪ Your color opens doors ♪ ♪ Mine's fightin' a different war ♪ ♪ Don't you believe we all deserve the same view ♪ ♪ Yesterday and tomorrow ♪ Growing up in Hopewell in this part of New Jersey, it was, I don't know.

I feel very torn, because I think a lot of it is why I am what I am, but it was incredibly difficult, especially as a young child.

Literally right in second grade, these kids put whipped cream all over my face.

And I remember my teacher, Miss Rickman, was trying to get it off my face, and she was crying and I was trying to comfort her as she was trying to comfort me.

I mean, out the gate, I had to quickly learn to brush off things.

You know, kids are just mean.

And they're mean because, I remember, I think it was in high school, one of my, I wanna say my... you say your social studies teacher, but he said, you know, from a mile down the road, white is white.

You can't see an Asian person's eyes.

You can't see a Jewish person's, you can kind of see the hair.

From a mile down the road, Black is Black.

It is obvious in its package.

And it's probably why we just get such a strong reaction from the other sides.

And a lot of instances, singing "Cotton Needs Picking" in my music class, very young, being the only Black person with the last name Cotton, singing "Cotton Needs Picking."

In today's society, that would be all over the news [laughs], it's so incorrect.

And I don't think that my teacher at the time really understood the weight of what that moment, that I was singing this song, that these kids were treating me this way.

♪ People out here searching for something ♪ ♪ Fightin' in a game that they can't win ♪ ♪ It's someone else's rules ♪ - Go into music.

It's a place that we can go and sing our pain, rejoice in who we are, freely.

It's a safe, free space to say and feel.

It's a space to let each other know you are not alone in this moment.

It's just, I feel like it has been another form of language for Blacks, since the beginning of time.

♪ We're all different but we're dyed ♪ ♪ We're all human ♪ ♪ And we all got pride ♪ Social issues in modern day music is in no way to me as powerful as it was when Marvin Gaye did ♪ There's too many of us ♪ There were songs back in the day, even Stevie Wonder "Ghetto Land."

I mean, "Love's in Need of Love Today."

They were dealing, I think, on a much deeper level and more consistently than we do.

As far as a message, I personally write songs that come from living, from life.

My feeling is that I never write about things that I haven't dealt with, because there's an emotional level to performance that if you can't get in and out of that moment safely, it really doesn't...

It's difficult to give an audience something if you haven't really dealt with it.

But I believe a lot of times songs that I write, when the listener steps into it, it's applicable to their life in that moment.

♪ Don't you believe we all deserve the same view ♪ I'd say use your voice.

This is not a moment to be silent.

This is not a moment to just let it fix itself.

It's not gonna fix itself.

We have to fix it.

Therefore we can no longer be silent, and you fight in whatever way you can, whether it's running for office, whether it's being a poll worker, whether it's teaching your kids not to judge other kids or bully other kids.

The littlest things that you do, they will matter in the end, if it's collective and we all make a pact to sort of do it together.

Then I think as a world, we have a chance, and I think there's enough people out there that believe and will do what I said, not because I said it, but I think if we collectively become those people, I think we have a shot.

I do.

♪ Yesterday and tomorrow ♪ ♪ I'm being genuine ♪ ♪ I feel like grace is a race with no finish line ♪ ♪ I thought the revolution wouldn't be televised ♪ ♪ It seems color still isn't getting recognized ♪ ♪ Can you sympathize ♪ ♪ Right or wrong, you've gotta know who you're fightin' for ♪ ♪ And speak your mind every time in this solid war ♪ ♪ We're all human, meaning we still suffer ♪ ♪ But remember ♪ ♪ Even broken crayons still color, color ♪ ♪ You talk about it like it ain't nothing ♪ ♪ You wouldn't for a minute want a life ♪ ♪ Walking in my shoes ♪ ♪ Your color opens doors ♪ ♪ Mine's fightin' a different war ♪ ♪ Don't you believe we all deserve the same view ♪