Volume LXXIX, Number 8
Camp Guide Pages 20-26 Keeper of All Things Einstein Headlines Pi Day Events . . . . . . . 5 Riverside School Exploring AI Possibilities to Serve Students, Teachers, Administrators . . . . . . 9 Past IAS Director Dijkgraaf to Head International Science Council . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Matters of Life, Love, And Death with Keats, Dickinson, and Wardell Gray . . . . . . . 15 Osgood Produces Career Game on her Senior Night As PU Women’s Hoops Defeats Yale 71-42 . . 30 PDS Girls’ Hockey Clicks On All Cylinders, Routing Oak Knoll 7-0 in Librera Cup Final . . . . . . . . . 35
Ryan Croddick Makes History as PU Men’s Lax Tops Penn State . . . . 29 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Books . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . 28 Classifieds . . . . . . . . . 38 Mailbox . . . . . . . . . . . 13 New To Us . . . . . . . . . 27 Obituaries . . . . . . . . . 37 Performing Arts . . . . .16, 17 Police Blotter . . . . . . . . .12 Real Estate . . . . . . . . 39 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Topics of the Town . . . . 5 Town Talk . . . . . . . . . . 6
www.towntopics.com
Black Soldiers who Fought In American Revolution Are Focus of Lecture The second event of the Cadwalader Lecture Series, one of the Princeton Battlefield Society’s (PBS) initiatives leading up to the upcoming 250th anniversary of the nation’s birth and the Battle of Princeton, honors Black History Month. A partnership with the Battlefield’s neighbor, Morven Museum & Garden, the talk on Thursday, February 27 at 6:30 p.m. at the museum features author and historian John Rees discussing the mostly unknown and under-appreciated role of Black soldiers in the fight for independence. Rees’ new book Don Troiani’s Black Soldiers in America’s Wars, 17541865 was written with Troiani, a prominent military artist. Rees will be on hand to sign copies of the book at the event. “There were 4,500 men who fought at the Battle of Princeton. But we only hear names like Mercer and Washington,” said Mark Herr, a PBS board member involved in the preparations for the sesquicentennial. “These soldiers were ordinary Americans — carpenters, sailors, tailors — who turned into a fighting force that defeated the prime fighting force of the time. And among the forgotten common soldiers were Black common soldiers, who were even more forgotten.” Fourteen Black soldiers have been identified as part of the Battle of Princeton. “As many as five to 25 percent in the American army during the Revolution were Black,” said Herr. The lecture series’ first installment was a talk by Richard Brookhiser on painter John Trumbull, held last November at the Nassau Club. Some 75 people attended, and Herr is hoping for another large audience at the Morven event. The goal of the series, among several initiatives leading up to the 250th anniversary, is to magnify the impact that the Battle and the Battlefield can have on today’s awareness of history. “We wanted to create some intellectual capacity to teach current and future generations about what happened at the battle,” said Herr. “These were ordinary men doing extraordinary things. They fought on January 2 at the Battle of Trenton. Then they marched all night and arrived around the Quaker Meetinghouse in Princeton on the morning of January 3rd, fought the British, and won. Then they had to march off toward Morristown. This was on 36 to 48 hours without sleep,
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Recent Immigrants Feeling Pressured by Trump Policies The town of Princeton, recent immigrant residents, and a number of local organizations are feeling the pressure from Trump administration policies on immigration. In his first month in office President Trump has signed numerous administrative orders on immigration. He has promised mass deportations and declared a national emergency at the southern border with major changes to border security. The Trump administration has closed the refugee resettlement program and the asylum application system and adopted a new policy which allows immigration authorities to enter schools, hospitals, and places of worship to arrest immigrants. Federal authorities have threatened to withhold funding from communities that don’t cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), although Councilwoman Leticia Fraga pointed out, “They can’t force local and state governments to do the work of the federal government.” The town of Princeton has not considered itself a “sanctuary city,” but has rather embraced the less controversial designation as a “welcoming city,” with policies that limit local police cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
An ICE raid in downtown Princeton in July 2024 resulted in one arrest, but the Princeton Police Department was not involved, and local government officials were not informed in advance. Mayor Mark Freda criticized ICE’s failure to communicate with local or state governments concerning their incursion into Princeton and subsequent actions. Town Topics requested comments from Freda, Council, and other municipal officials concerning the current situation regarding recent immigrants in Princeton in
light of federal policy changes. Municipal officials have deferred responding, pending a discussion of “confidential advice of counsel regarding immigration directives and orders,” in a closed session scheduled on February 18, which took place after press time. Resistencia en Acción NJ, a migrant justice organization with offices in Trenton and Princeton dedicated to defending and protecting the rights of immigrant communities in New Jersey, has been focusing
It’s Science Bowl season, and a cluster of local teams are preparing to compete in the New Jersey Regional Science Bowls on February 21 for the middle school competition and February 22 for the high school contest sponsored by the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and the U.S. Department of Energy. Among the 16 middle school teams facing off in the question-and-answer rounds in the fields of chemistry, biology, physics, astronomy, mathematics, and general and earth sciences are four area
schools: defending champion Princeton Charter School (PCS), the French American School of Princeton, Lawrence Middle School, and the Noor-Ul-Iman School of South Brunswick. PCS has won the regional middle school contest and gone on to the National Science Bowl six times in the past seven years. In the high school competition, teams from Princeton High School, Princeton International School of Math and Science (PRISMS), the Wilberforce School,
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Local Teams Are Gearing Up for Science Bowls at PPPL, Feb. 21-22
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HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR: Princeton Public Library hosted a Chinese New Year Celebration on Saturday afternoon featuring music, crafts, and other hands-on activities presented by students from the Mandarin classes and Chinese Club at Princeton High School and the Princeton Chinese Language School. Participants share what they liked best about the event in this week’s Town Talk on page 6. (Photo by Thomas Hedges)
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