This introduction to the seven-part series "Camden: A New Path Forward" sets the stage for understanding the debate among residents, elected officials, and policymakers about the city's future.
Best friends "Bear" and "Jaz" chat in front of a mural in Camden in 2014. Photo by April Saul ***One-time use only for Sunday Opinion Sept. 1, 2024***Read moreApril Saul
by Rann Miller, For The Inquirer
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Despite protests by activists, the storied Camden High "Castle on the Hill" was demolished in 2018 and replaced by a modern campus.Read moreApril Saul
In June 2023, Jatiana Cotto exults upon graduating from Camden High. Read moreApril Saul
In March 2015 in Camden, Alyce Ali walks past her home after removing some belongings; the Line Street home had partially collapsed the night before. Read moreApril Saul
A Camden woman cleans her sidewalk on July 27, 2015. Read moreApril Saul
Participants in a Stations of the Cross performance wait for their entrance at St. Joseph's Pro-Cathedral in East Camden in April 2015. Read moreApril Saul
Aspiring fighter Gambino "Showtime" Crespo, 7 of Pennsauken and his little brother Christian Crespo, 1, attend a tournament sponsored by the Camden Boxing Academy, in Camden, N.J. in August 2012. The following year, their father was murdered.Read moreApril Saul
Amyja Grant with one of her six siblings in the park across the street from her house in June 2012.Read moreApril Saul
A little girl plays in the spray during a block party on Everett Street in Camden in June 2014.Read moreApril Saul
Panther fans celebrate as Camden High defeats Medford Tech in the second round of the Group 2 NJSIAA playoffs on February 26, 2024. Basketball is very important in the city.Read moreApril Saul
Camden trick or treaters play on the stoop of an abandoned house on Oct. 31, 2015.Read moreApril Saul
At Camden High in 2015, beloved teacher Alex Jones sings karaoke to his students on the day he tells them he is leaving teaching to become an administrator; some of the kids were so upset they cried.Read moreApril Saul
In February 2011, a laid-off police officer and her family confront then-Mayor Dana Redd at a heated meeting at City Hall.Read moreApril Saul
In October 2014, young Camden students from Sharp School protest budget cuts that forced teachers to be laid off; the school has since been closed.Read moreApril Saul
Camden High students dance at their prom in May 2016.Read moreApril Saul
Activist Dava Salas leads a demonstration that shut down a Camden school board meeting in April 2019, during threatened public school closures.Read moreApril Saul
In 2014, football players prepare for battle in the Camden High locker room. Even though their school was the lowest ranked in the state of New Jersey, at the time, football and basketball were a source of great pride. Read moreApril Saul
From left to right, Camden Mayor Vic Carstarphen; South Jersey power broker George Norcross; US Rep. Donald Norcross; former state assemblyman Arthur Barclay; and Camden Board of Education president Wasim Muhammad; attend a Camden High basketball game in March 2022.Read moreApril Saul
During massive public safety layoffs in January 2011, Renee Muhammad, who was one of four women firefighters in Camden, cries while waiting to march to fire headquarters and hand in her gear. Read moreApril Saul
In the fall of 2014, NJ Governor Chris Christie visits Camden High. He announced funding to renovate the school at the time; but instead, it was torn down and replaced. Read moreApril Saul
Close friend Tymere Barton, who had accompanied teen Tyimer Bright to the party where he was shot and killed, breaks down at the teen's coffin in April 2015.Read moreApril Saul
At the beginning of the school day, students at Camden High are frisked in the fall of 2014 because of a broken metal detector.Read moreApril Saul
In October 2018, atthe gravesite of Jovany “Macho” Torres, shot and killed on a Camden street corner, his nephew cries out, “I need an uncle in my life!”Read moreApril Saul
A little girl dances around a dead tree in front of an abandoned building in Camden on Aug. 14, 1014. Read moreApril Saul
On October 16, 2012, Lisa Anderson weeps after a cross in memory of her son, Lateaf Anderson, is placed in a field commemorating that year's homicide victims in front of Camden's City Hall; the field was designed to draw attention to the issue.Read moreApril Saul
Best friends "Bear" and "Jaz" chat in front of a mural in Camden in 2014.Read moreApril Saul
Camden was once a thriving city — a bustling sibling to Philadelphia, whose ambitions, if not its size, matched those of its civic relative on the other side of the Delaware River.
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But post-industrialization ushered in decades of unemployment, crime, and an overwhelming spirit of hopelessness.
State intervention was supposed to turn Camden around, but produced mixed results at best, and did nothing to quell the debate among residents, elected officials, and policymakers about the city’s future.
In the seven essays in this series, that debate continues in an attempt to help Camden chart a new path forward.
