BY WALTER ELLIOTT
NEWARK – No funeral arrangements for former mayor and state senator Sharpe James, 89, who died May 11 at a West Orange assisted living facility, has been announced as of 5 p.m. May 13. His family may call upon Perry Funeral Home here, who had made funeral arrangements for his mother, Beulah James Fluker, 109, who died in Maplewood in September 2023.
James, a son of The Great Migration, rose from living in a coldwater flat on Johnson Street with his late brother Joseph to become Newark’s longest serving mayor 1986-2006. He was also State Senator of the then 29th Legislative District 1999-2007 and an Essex County College professor.
James, who was born Feb. 20, 1936 in Jacksonville, Fla., was among the later part of The Great Migration. He and Joseph were spirited out on a train north by mother Beulah James to escape an abusive boyfriend. Mother James worked as a Newark Beth Israel Hospital nurse and owned a restaurant while raising her sons.
James, a South Side (now Malcolm X. Shabazz) High School class of 1958, was a scholar-track athlete for the Bulldogs and the now-Montclair State University. The U.S. Army veteran and master’s in education degree holder from Springfield (Mass.) College returned to Newark for 20 years as a Newark Public Schools and ECC instructor.
South Ward voters first elected him as their councilman in 1970 and was re-elected twice before successfully switching to an at-large seat in 1982. He successfully challenged four term-incumbent Mayor and former mentor Kenneth Gibson, Newark’s 37th mayor ran unopposed – a first – in 1990 and was re-elected three more times until he decided re-election after filing his petitions in City Hall in 2006.
The late historian Clement A. Price, at successor Cory A. Booker’s 2006 election, called James, “The Builder.” It was under his administration that NJPAC was built and had used funds from increased Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Newark Airport lease payments to start building the Prudential Center Arena in 2005. (“The Rock” was completed in 2007.)
The now-Newark Museum of Art was expanded. Applebee’s and the Home Depot were built in the Central Ward. New downtown skyscrapers and thousands of market-rate townhouses units were built.
James, however, served 18 months of a 27-month federal jail sentence 2009-10. A jury found him guilty of steering city-owned lots in his name to his mistress plus tax evasion. He resigned from his senate seat in 2007.
The elder James watched son John Sharpe James become South Ward Councilman on The Booker Team ticket 2013-22. Wife Mary Mattison James, other sons Elliot and Kevin are among his survivors.
