Jersey City Black History Month Robert Wilkinson Castle Jr.
A key fixture of the civil rights movement was Robert Wilkinson Castle Jr, a Rector at St. Johns Episcopal Church in Bergen Hill– a church that once been known as the largest and richest Episcopal church in the state and had since fallen into disarray. Born in Jersey City in 1929, Robert Wilkinson Castle Jr. was an all-American quarterback and graduate of St. Lawrence University and Berkeley Divinity School.
“He ran an energetic ministry in which spirituality and social action were indissolubly linked…”
-New York Times
Reverend Bob Castle Jr. of Jersey City
During his time at St. Johns Episcopal Church Father Castle started a chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality, Marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Mississippi, and walked the streets to calm tensions after riots threatened. He picketed for civil rights and against the Vietnam War, and was arrested when he dumped garbage on the steps of Jersey City’s City Hall to draw attention to living conditions in the city’s poor neighborhoods. He ran free summer youth programs and was tethered to a program for impoverished black youths in Jersey City. A city that at the time was described as “a tormented city with a crooked Jersey City administration”
“Last year, he feels he truly reached a watershed. Negotiations on a contract for workers at an AIDS center he founded had dragged on, provoking workers to picket. Even though Father Castle was the center's board chairman, his heart lay with the union. He joined the picket lines. He, in effect, picketed himself.”
Activism (& arrests) of a Jersey City Civil rights leader
Father Castle was notorious for picketing banks, restaurants and other establishments for failing to hire minorities. By 1991 he had been arrested more than 20 times. He picketed his own bishop for belonging to segregated clubs and, later, went as far as to picket himself while serving as a board chairman for a local aids center when he joined the union to fight for better rights of its workers.
Father Castle was arrested so often that, his children were entirely accustomed to asking, “How much is the bail, Mom?” and remembered for championing the black communities in Jersey City, not only by voice but also by action.
Father Castle and The Black Panthers
Jersey City’s longtime association between progressive religious leaders and the Black Panthers was evident through Father Castle’s support of the organization. Castle opened his church, and his home, to meetings of the Black Panthers for an extended time when they were in between buildings. Through Saint John's Episcopal Church Castle provided supplies to the group while they found their footing and gained a loyal following. Not only did he participate in their rallies and public appearances, he would support these men later when they were brought up on violent charges that overshadowed the positive contributions they provided the local Bergen Lafayette, Jersey City community.
“He was an angry white man, I’ll tell you. He really found fault with
so many ways that people of color are treated in America; it infuriated him.
That said, he was a lot of fun.”
Beyond Jersey City
Robert Wilkinson Castle Jr. upon leaving Jersey City in the late 1960s, had proved to be such a nuisance of the diocesan that no other parish would hire him.
He went on into the film industry and started a successful career as an Actor. He was the the subject of Jonathan Demme’s acclaimed 1992 documentary, “Cousin Bobby”. Demme, a cousin of Robert’s, reached out in the late 1980s upon reading a newspaper article describing Father Castle’s practice of “plastering irate notices on the windshields of cars that were parked illegally on the church sidewalk, blocking congregants’ access.” That the vehicles in question were police cars from the local precinct did not deter Father Castle in the least. His performance in “Cousin Bobby” led to roles in more than a dozen fiction films. Among them was “Philadelphia” (1993), directed by Mr. Demme, in which he played Bud Beckett, the father of the young lawyer Andrew Beckett, played by Tom Hanks.