East Brunswick's Lost Soul Memorial Project Gets Grant From NJ Arts & Culture Renewal Fund

EAST BRUNSWICK, NJ – The Lost Souls Public Memorial Project was recently awarded a grant from the New Jersey Arts and Culture Renewal Fund.

A total of $664,500 in grants was given to 30 nonprofits statewide.

Founded in 2017, the Lost Souls Public Memorial Project is a community effort in collaboration with the township, to remember 137 African American people whose freedom was stolen by the Van Wickle Slave Ring.

Abusing his legal authority and using his home in what is now East Brunswick, Middlesex County Court of Pleas Judge, Jacob Van Wickle, conspired with powerful people to run the slave ring.

Using a loophole in the law, Van Wickle oversaw the kidnapping of free and enslaved Blacks, selling them into the Deep South and permanent slavery. This slave ring operated from February until October 1818.

According to historical records, Van Wickle's home was used to hold people captive until they were sent on three ships, sailing out of Perth Amboy, down to New Orleans, where they were sold or delivered to the plantation of his son-in-law, Charles Morgan.

The Lost Souls Public Memorial will center the 137 people, ensuring their names are not lost to history, but are memorialized in the township.

The memorial will be "informative, respectful, and engaging."

The grant from the New Jersey Arts and Culture Renewal Fund will go towards building the memorial. Since its founding in 2020, the Fund has awarded over $7.4 million to more than 200 organizations across New Jersey.

The Fund, hosted by the Princeton Area Community Foundation, offers critical funding for many of the state’s smaller nonprofit organizations in the arts, culture and historical sectors.

“The New Jersey Arts and Culture Renewal Fund directly addresses disparities in funding that were present before the pandemic and have increased in its aftermath,” said Sharnita C. Johnson, Vice President of Strategy, Impact and Communications at the Victoria Foundation and Co-Chair of the Fund.

“The smaller cultural organizations supported by the New Jersey Arts and Culture Renewal Fund serve multiple functions in their communities. They are important anchors central to community wellbeing and quality of life in the areas they serve.”

The New Jersey Arts and Culture Renewal Fund is an unprecedented collaboration between private and public donors. Jeremy Grunin, President of the Grunin Foundation and Fund Co-Chair, said they are grateful to be entering their third year of grantmaking, as the effects of the pandemic are still being felt in the sector.

Smaller arts and culture organizations contribute greatly to our understanding of each other and of our world, said Lynne Toye, Executive Director of the New Jersey Arts and Culture Renewal Fund.

“By supporting organizations that tell inclusive stories, we are helping to provide opportunities for representation of all who contribute to the rich and diverse cultural community of New Jersey,” she said.

Grants ranged in size from $2,000 to $50,000, with an average grant size of $22,000.