‘She was a giant’: Remembering Morristown’s Connie Montgomery, from cheerleader to changemaker

 

When Connie Montgomery went to Morristown High School, her daughter said, Blacks were not allowed on the cheerleading team. So she formed her own squad.

“They were so good, the white cheerleaders came to her to teach them,” Lisa said.

Ethel Constance Montgomery — “Connie” or “Ms. Connie” to generations of Morristowners — died earlier this month in Goodyear, AZ. She was 93.

Her passing during Women’s History Month seems fitting. Few women — or men — have left such a mark on the town she loved. If placed end to end, her accomplishments seemingly could stretch all the way from Morristown to the Arizona community where she spent her final 15 years with family.

“She was a giant,” said local historian Kate McCabe.

Montgomery, the first Black woman elected to what was then the Morristown school board, forged a reputation as a tireless advocate for education, open housing and inclusion. Her superpowers: A steadfast sense of self, diligent preparation for every endeavor, and a radiant smile that won friends wherever she went, say those who knew her.

The daughter of Barbadian immigrants, Montgomery (née Mounter) was born in Morristown during the Great Depression and raised in Madison and Morristown. She graduated from Morristown High School in 1949 and majored in business administration at what is now Saint Elizabeth University in Morris Township, according to her obituary.

In 1952, the obituary continues, Montgomery had Morris County’s first integrated Girl Scout troop. Organizing parents to lobby for a more inclusive Lafayette Elementary School, she got elected as its P.T.A. president — despite having no school-age children.

She co-founded Carettes Inc. of Morris County, an organization providing scholarships and activities for African American high school juniors, in 1959.

Montgomery became the first Black woman elected to what was then the Morristown Board of Education, in 1966. Soon she also was its first Black president. As an appointee to the newly minted Morris School District board, she played an important role in moving the regional district forward after the turbulent, court-ordered merger of Morristown and Morris Township schools in 1971.

She would win election to the Morristown council, too — not as a representative of the mostly Black Second Ward, where she lived, but as an at-large councilwoman for the entire town. She nearly became Morristown’s first Black mayor, coming within 195 votes of beating Norman Bloch in the 1989 Democratic primary.

“She was a true leader. She had the ability to bring people of both races together,” said Chris Martin, a former alderman (equivalent to a councilman today) and school board member.

Along the way, Montgomery worked for the Morristown Neighborhood House, Bell Labs and AT&T, where she rose from typist to a manager, according to her obituary. Gov. Brendan Byrne appointed her to the New Jersey Board of Education in 1975.

She participated in a Neighborhood Watch group. She edited The Voice, a newsletter for the Concerned Citizens of the Second Ward. She was involved in the Morris County Urban League, the Morris County Fair Housing Council, the NAACP, and the League of Women Voters.

Montgomery also volunteered on the long-range planning committee of what is now Morristown Medical Center; took management courses on weekends at the College of Saint Elizabeth, according to press accounts; and raised two children with her husband, Ollie, who worked at a Whippany paper mill and died in 1982.

“She never missed a thing we did, ever. She and my dad were super parents. I was very blessed,” said Lisa, a history teacher.

‘A PHENOMENAL WOMAN’

Morristown historian Kate McCabe lights up at the mention of Montgomery.

“She was such an important person in the community, and had a seat at the table before many others…she sort of paved the way for people who came after her.”

One of those who came after was Michelle Dupree Harris, who followed in Montgomery’s footsteps as an at-large councilwoman. She considered Montgomery a political mentor, role model and friend.

“Morristown has a unique circle of African American women who nurture and empower younger women to find their place within their community. Connie stood out in front,” said Harris, who came to know Montgomery through the Lafayette 4-H club that she launched in 1997 to give kids fun things to do.

“She was a phenomenal woman,” Harris said.

Others remember Montgomery as a fighter who could not stomach injustices inflicted on anyone. Helen Arnold helped on her campaigns.

“She raised hell with everybody!” Arnold said.

Yet Montgomery did so without bombast, said Martin, the former alderman.

“She wasn’t strident. But she was insistent,” recounted the 89-year-old Guyanese immigrant.

Articulate and persuasive, Montgomery was a “wonderful organizer” and a firm believer in inclusion — a pioneer who was popular with white and Black people, Martin said.

‘IT’S ABOUT TIME YOU WOKE UP!’

McCabe ranks Montgomery’s stint on the fledgling Morris School District board as perhaps her finest hours. “She was there at a time when it was important for people to have access to the room where decisions are being made,” she said.

Montgomery’s advocacy for education had humble origins. Namely, scissors. According to a Daily Record profile, Montgomery was teaching arts and crafts at the Neighborhood House and observed that little children from the all-Black Lafayette School did not know how to use scissors. She complained to the school board.

As the story goes, someone shot back: “It’s about time you woke up!”

So she ran for the board. One of her proudest achievements, she told a reporter when  stepping down from the District board in 1975, was helping create a plan for integrating elementary schools in the town and Township.

About 25 percent of Morris School District students from that era were Black. The percentage for all of Morris County, by comparison, was around 3 percent. Today, Hispanics have eclipsed African Americans as the District’s largest minority, and are nearly the majority at Morristown High School.

Many Township residents of the late 1960s opposed the merger. But a group spearheaded by Morristown lawyer Steve Wiley convinced the court that Township plans for its own high school would spark white flight from Morristown, with disastrous results for the area.

Montgomery continued to press the regional district to incorporate the contributions of Black citizens into Morristown High history courses.

“Minorities have not been recognized for the positive things done that all Americans benefit from,” Montgomery, then a councilwoman, told The Daily Record in 1982. For instance, she said, few people knew that blood plasma was discovered by Charles Drew, a Black man.

Tragically, Drew died after a car accident — when a southern hospital refused to give him plasma from a white man. Schools perpetuate racial barriers by not teaching such incidents, she told the interviewer.

NO ‘GOTCHA’S’

Montgomery’s electoral victories were not limited to government. St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, where she sang in the choir and worshiped for more than a half-century, elected her as a warden.

“She was a ball of energy. If something needed to be done, she got it done,” said Frank Failla, who served with Montgomery on the church vestry. “Connie had the greatest smile, that made you smile, and she made you feel special.”

She stayed in contact with the parish after moving to Arizona. Failla was touched by a congratulatory note from Montgomery after he and his wife Kay won a church award.

In Arizona, Montgomery joined another St. Peter’s congregation plus a couple of social clubs, and did some tutoring, her obituary noted. Active and mentally sharp almost to the end, she attended a Martin Luther King Day event in January, her daughter said.

After Montgomery’s death, flags at Morristown town hall were lowered to half-staff for three days. Mayor Tim Dougherty praised her legacy and “a life well lived.”

Lisa Montgomery said part of her mother’s legacy to her is: Be prepared.

That lesson was seared into Lisa’s memory at a young age. At one of her mother’s school board meetings, a radio interviewer posed a question to the little girl.

“Lisa,” her mom interjected, “you don’t have to answer until you know what you want to say. However long it takes. Never let anybody make you a ‘gotcha.’”

Born in Morristown in July 1931, Montgomery was the fourth of five daughters for Aletha and Arnold Mounter of Madison. She died on March 16 in Arizona. Predeceased by husband William O. Montgomery and sisters Clareen of Madison and Carmen of Barbados, she is survived by her children, Lisa of Goodyear AZ and Byron of New York; sisters Muriel of Goodyear and Catherine of Atlanta; and numerous nieces, nephews and friends across the United States, Canada, England, the Netherlands, and Barbados.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations in Montgomery’s memory to the Spence-Chapin Adoption Agency.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated Chris Martin’s native country. It is Guyana.