Ethel Lawrence’s legacy with 60,000 homes
The equity struggle that Ethel Lawrence began in Mount Laurel has brought in 60,000 affordable New Jersey homes in the suburbs of the state.
New Jersey is known today for having some of the toughest affordable housing laws in the country.
Ethel Lawrence (Fair Share Housing Center)
“When we think of civil rights work, we think of criminal justice or suffrage, but housing justice is really part of that conversation,” said James Williams, director of racial policy at Fair Share Housing Center. “We could argue that it was at the epicenter of reform not just in New Jersey, but across the county.”
By 2011, Mount Laurel had built 477 new affordable housing units in seven communities: Rancocas Pointe; Laurel Creek; Ethel Lawrence Homes; Stone gate; Union Mill; and the Weiland Developments, all within four miles of Essex Place Condominiums, where Mathews was videotaped verbally assaulting his black neighbor.
According to Marcus Sibley, president of Southern Burlington County’s NAACP, the construction has resulted in a significant reduction in segregation. In 1980, prior to the New Jersey Supreme Court ruling, less than 5% of the community’s population identified as black. Now, Mount Laurel is more than 11% black according to the latest census data. Sibley’s NAACP chapter fought alongside Lawrence during the two historic cases, and he said the recent incident indicated the ongoing nature of this decades-long struggle.
Individual measures and systemic barriers
After the video of Mathews came out, several colored neighbors went public with stories of him terrorizing them – breaking windows, slashing tires, and painting offensive graffiti on cars.
“People try to pretend there’s only one racist in town,” Sibley said. “Lots of people have opposed black life in this area.”
Williams said that most of the racism that the Fair Share Center is fighting does not involve individual displays of racism, but rather systemic barriers.
“We can [generally] no longer physically terrorizing certain communities, but we can ensure they never truly grow to prosperity by denying them shelter, access to capital, unnecessary eviction requests and the overuse of credit reports and criminal background checks, ”he said. “There are new weapons that certain people and communities use to stop people who don’t look what they think fit.”
For Williams, the Mathews video is just further proof that Ethel Lawrence’s fight for equality continues.
“New Jersey is very busy,” he said.
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