A South Jersey nonprofit has suspended its leader for asking a Salem school to have Black students portray slaves for a reenactment marking the city’s 350th anniversary.
Stand Up for Salem has launched an investigation into the incident and Thursday indefinitely suspended its executive director Betsy McBride, said board president Tom Smith.
“I deeply regret that this happened,” Smith said Friday.
Reached by email before her suspension with pay, McBride said she had apologized and declined further comment.
McBride was spearheading an Oct. 4 event to commemorate the city’s founding. The festivities planned include an actor portraying an enslaved woman who gained her freedom and became an abolitionist.
The incident sparked a furor in the rural community after residents learned that McBride had asked Salem Middle School Principal Pascale E. DeVilmé to allow Black students to participate in the slavery reenactment.
DeVilmé left the meeting without responding, according to Nelson Carney Jr., a Stand Up board member. McBride later apologized in an email to the principal, saying her intent was to portray living history in Salem.
“I wasn’t thinking how that would sound to you. And that’s the problem right? White privilege means I didn’t think. But, it was offensive and for that I apologize,” McBride wrote.
Salem County NAACP President Nelson Carney Jr. said the civil rights group has received numerous complaints. Members want McBride removed permanently, he said. The chapter plans to discuss the matter at a meeting Monday night.
“All of this is unacceptable,” Carney said. “You don’t go to a school and ask if kids can be slaves. It’s mind-blowing.”
Smith said Stand Up for Salem has been planning the celebration for months. The now predominantly Black city was established in 1675 by John Fenwick, a Quaker, and was once a thriving agriculture and glass manufacturing center.
About 58% of Salem’s 5,200 residents are Black, 24% are white, 11% Hispanic, and the remaining are Native American, Asian or multiracial, according to census data.
As part of the anniversary festivities, Smith said an actor has been hired to portray Amy Hester “Hetty” Reckless, an abolitionist who helped other enslaved people find freedom on the Underground Railroad.
Reckless escaped from Col. Robert Johnson, a Salem enslaver, and fled to Philadelphia where she operated a safe house, a women’s shelter and helped the Black community. She returned to Salem after Johnson’s death in 1850.
Smith said inviting Black children to participate in the celebration to portray enslaved people was never part of the planning. The board was unaware that McBride planned to make the request, he said.
“We would not have signed off on that,” Smith said.
In a letter Thursday to Salem School Superintendent Carol L. Kelley, Smith apologized, calling the suggestion “inappropriate and insensitive.”
The proposal was made during a discussion on community partnerships, the district said. In a statement, Kelley said she was disturbed by the suggestion made for middle schoolers who participate in an extracurricular youth program sponsored by Alpha Kappa Alpha, a predominantly Black sorority, to portray enslaved people.
“Let there be no confusion: Salem City School District will not, under any circumstance, endorse or permit any activity that is demeaning, discriminatory, or harmful to our students, staff or the community,” Kelley said.
Mayor Jody Veler said she hopes the incident will prompt Stand Up Salem to add more diversity to its board and provide bias training. City Council plans to read the apology Monday, she said.
“Rebuilding trust is not going to be that easy,” Veler said. “The community is absolutely outraged, but not surprised.”
Smith plans to serve as interim executive director. McBride, who has served in the position for about three years, had planned to retire in December, he said.
