Seven days before his assassination, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spent the day in New Jersey, visiting churches, schools, and public housing in Newark, Paterson, Orange and Jersey City.   He also met with Newark business leaders at the offices of the New Jersey Bell Telephone Company, and met with civil rights leader LeRoi Jones (now known as Amiri Baraka).  King held a news conference at Mount Calvary Missionary Baptist Church, and spoke at South Side High School (now Malcolm X. Shabbaz High School).

He made news that day – March 28, 1968 – by saying that he might abandon his policy of not endorsing presidential candidates and take sides in the Democratic primary.  On March 12, U.S. Sen. Eugene McCarthy held President Lyndon Johnson to a 49%-42% win in the New Hampshire primary; U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy entered the race on March 16.  In Newark, King said he was “disenchanted” with Johnson, and that he would consider backing either McCarthy or Kennedy.  Johnson dropped out of the race three days later.

King also called for the defeat of Newark Mayor Hugh Addonizio: “The hour has come for Newark, New Jersey to have a black mayor,” King told more than 1,000 people at the Abyssinian Baptist Church. In 1970, Kenneth Gibson became the city’s first Black mayor when he defeated Addonizio in a runoff election.

Anne Martindell (1914-2008) served in the New Jersey State Senate from 1974 to 1977.Former State Sen. Anne Clark Martindell, a Democrat who won an upset victory in a solidly Republican legislative district in 1973 and went on to become the United States Ambassador to New Zealand, passed away on Wednesday.  She was 93.

Martindell became involved in politics in 1968 when her brother, Blair Clark, was the campaign manager for Eugene McCarthy’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.  She ran for State Senator in a Hunterdon County-based district that included Princeton, Pennington and the Hopewells, and narrowly defeated incumbent Bill Schluter in 1973, when Watergate caused Republicans to lose ten State Senate seats. 

She left the Senate in 1977 when President Jimmy Carter appointed her to serve as an Ambassador.  Her Senate seat was won by Republican Walter Foran.

Eighteen women have served in the New Jersey State Senate: Mildred Barry Hughes (D-Union) in 1966, Jerry English (D-Union) in 1971, Wynona Lipman (D-Essex) in 1972, Anne Martindell (D-Mercer) and Alene Ammond (D-Camden) in 1974, Leanna Brown (R-Morris) and Catherine Costa (D-Burlington) in 1984, and Martha Bark (R-Burlington) in 1997. Diane Allen and Shirley Turner (D-Mercer) took office in January 1998, Barbara Buono and Nia Gill in 2001, and Teresa Ruiz, Dana Redd, and Sandra Cunningham in 2007.

Ellen Karcher in January 2004, and Loretta Weinberg the following November. Jennifer Beck defeated Karcher last November – the first time one woman unseated another.

In the final days of Eugene McCarthy’s campaign for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination – when Hubert Humphrey appeared to have the votes to win following the assassination of Robert Kennedy and George McGovern’s last-minute replacement candidacy never took hold – McCarthy released a list of possible cabinet appointments.  He had narrowed his choice for U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development down to two choices: Governor Richard Hughes of New Jersey and Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York.

There was a changing of the guard among liberals in Princeton last night in a race for President of the Princeton Community Democratic Organization, a group of Democrats from Princeton Borough and Princeton Township. Jenny Crumiller, a fundraiser for Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign and a Democracy for America member, defeated Dick Bergman, who got his start in politics working for Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern, by 156-59 margin. Bergman, who worked as a budget analyst for the New Jersey Legislature and spent thre years working in the Carter White House, had been the handpicked candidate of Princeton Township Mayor Phyllis Marchand. With more than 350 members, the PCDO is the largest local Democratic club in Mercer County.