I have just had a chance to read your thorough and enlightening article about Springdale Golf Club (U.S. 1, September 5). A perfect example of the kind of reporting that U.S. 1 does best.
However, to tell the history of Springdale without discussing its segregated past dismisses the experience of many African-Americans in our community. The term white-washing comes to mind. How long was it before a black person could play golf at Springdale? How did that policy change? Those questions embrace the total history of the club in Princeton, not just the “nice bits.”
— Marcia Wood, Princeton
Editor’s note: Our reader has a good memory. A 1975 New York Times article reported that “The New Jersey Division on Civil Rights has announced it will bring charges next week against Springdale Golf Club that it discriminated last May on the basis of race and color when it denied membership to the Princeton High School basketball coach, Marvin Trotman.
“Mr. Trotman, the first black man to apply for membership at Springdale, was allegedly rejected for unsportsmanlike conduct as a coach.”
A year later the New York Times followed up with this report: “The Springdale Golf Club, which was charged in a discrimination suit by a black who was denied admission, has accepted its first black member. David Nesbit, a New Brunswick businessman, was admitted last month by the club, it was disclosed yesterday.
“The club had been charged with discrimination in a suit filed by Marvin Trotman, a Princeton High School coach and teacher who was denied admission. Mr. Trotman’s suit, still pending before the state Civil Rights Division, was also filed against Princeton University, the owner of the property on which the club is situated.”
