Sandra Bolden Cunningham

Sandra Bolden was born on September 4, 1950, in Newark, New Jersey, where she was raised. Her father, Anderson Bolden, served as a private in the U.S. Marine Corps and was a Montford Point Marine. In a Veterans Day message in 2021 she honored him alongside her late husband, calling her father "one of the chosen few."

As a young woman she was drawn to the stage. She studied at the New York Academy of Theater Arts and was part of the Negro Ensemble Company. She told the Hudson Reporter in 2001 that she had some early minor success and was up for a part in an off-Broadway musical, but lost it when it became clear she would have to sing. "I can dance, but I can't sing," she said. More disappointments and the long commute between New York and Newark persuaded her to look for "something a little more stable."

She graduated from West Side High School in Newark and earned a Bachelor of Arts from Bloomfield College (her Senate biography lists a liberal arts major, while the Hudson Reporter described it as an English degree). She later attended the New York Academy of Theater Arts and earned a fundraising certificate from New York University.

Her working life was built around community service. She worked for the American Red Cross, for the Essex County executive and for the Essex County Bar Association, and she was community and public relations coordinator for Essex-Newark Legal Services. As deputy director of the Metropolitan Ecumenical Ministry she started programs to expand the role of the church in the community, and through Montclair State College she taught grammar and high school students the basics of the judicial and court system.

In 1988 she became executive director of the Hudson County Bar Association, based in the historic Brennan Courthouse on Newark Avenue in Jersey City. The association then had about 300 members and no salaried staff. By 2001 membership had more than tripled to over 1,000. To help ordinary residents who felt intimidated by lawyers, she created "Legalities," a cable access program explaining legal issues and the services available in Hudson County.

After her husband's death in 2004 she became president and executive director of the Sandra and Glenn D. Cunningham Foundation, a Jersey City nonprofit that provided scholarships and book funds to college-bound Hudson County high school students and paired each student with a mentor.

Following Glenn Cunningham's death, she was mentioned as a possible candidate for his Senate seat, and for mayor, and in 2006 signs in Jersey City touted her as a possible U.S. Senate candidate. In 2007 she ran for the 31st District Senate seat, covering Bayonne and part of Jersey City. With the support of the Hudson County Democratic Organization and Mayor Jerramiah Healy, she defeated Assemblyman Louis Manzo in the June Democratic primary. After Senator Joseph Doria resigned to become Commissioner of Community Affairs, a special convention chose her on October 23, 2007, to complete his term. She won the November general election with about 88 percent of the vote and was sworn in by Senate President Richard Codey on November 8, 2007. She became the first woman elected to the Legislature from the 31st District.

She was re-elected in 2011, 2013, 2017 and 2021, serving five terms in all. She was Senate Majority Whip from 2008, Deputy Majority Leader from 2018, and President Pro Tempore from January 2022, part of what WHYY described as the most diverse Senate leadership team in New Jersey history. As President Pro Tempore she was sixth in line to the governorship. She chaired the Senate Higher Education Committee and served on the Budget and Appropriations Committee and the Labor Committee, as well as the Joint Committee on the Public Schools, the Ellis Island Commission and the Amistad Commission.

Her legislative record centered on reentry and second chances. She and Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman sponsored the Opportunity to Compete Act, New Jersey's "ban the box" law, signed by Governor Chris Christie on August 11, 2014, which made New Jersey the 13th state to remove criminal record questions from initial job applications. She was the primary sponsor of a three-bill expungement reform package Christie signed in December 2017, which shortened waiting periods from 10 years to six for adults and from five to three for juveniles. She co-sponsored the 2018 law allowing DREAMers to qualify for state college financial aid, sponsored 2020 legislation easing financial aid problems for students during the COVID-19 pandemic, and joined Senate President Steve Sweeney on S-2331, signed in 2020, which helps people leaving prison obtain identification and apply for benefits such as food assistance and Medicaid.

In 2012 the Hudson Reporter ranked her sixth among Hudson County's 50 most influential people.

She first met Jersey City police officer and councilman Glenn D. Cunningham through her bar association work, when he promised to recruit lawyers as members. On election night in 1989, while interviewing candidates for her cable show at Casino in the Park, the two connected. He asked her to lunch on his birthday, September 16, 1990. They dated for eight years and married in a private ceremony in Nassau, Bahamas, on January 7, 1998. She said they shared a passion for Civil War history, genealogy and old movies, and that they took weekend trips to Gettysburg because "lying on the beach is boring."

During his 2001 mayoral campaign she was his scheduler, and as First Lady she appeared at his side at groundbreakings, funerals and community events, while also joining the Jersey City Library Board of Trustees and the Jersey City Museum Board. Glenn Cunningham died of a heart attack on May 25, 2004. Friends described the couple as "deeply, deeply in love," and she continued to honor his memory publicly for the rest of her life. Colleague Teresa Ruiz said she was "really a cowgirl" who loved horses and spending time on a ranch. She lived in Jersey City.

She believed that quality education was "the passport to achieving social equity" and that working families had a right to affordable health care, a fair and safe workplace and property tax relief, according to her Senate biography. Above all she championed giving people coming out of prison a "second chance," hoping to expand Jersey City's Second Chance job program statewide and arguing that rehabilitation, education, job training and family counseling would reduce repeat offending. "A minor criminal offense should not lead to a lifetime of punishment," she said in 2017. She also spoke out against hair discrimination after the Buena Regional High School wrestling incident and supported recognizing International Women's Day in New Jersey.

Her laws on ban the box and expungement reshaped how New Jersey treats people with criminal records looking for work, and colleagues credited her with making a mark on higher education policy. In 2024 the New Jersey Reentry Corporation dedicated the computer laboratory of its Reentry Training and Employment Center in her honor. Jersey City Council President Denise Ridley called her "a true and tireless advocate for our community," and Assemblyman Jerry Walker called her "my friend, my mentor and someone I loved dearly." With her husband, she was part of two decades in which the Cunningham name carried major weight in Hudson County politics.

She was the first woman elected to the New Jersey Legislature from the 31st District. The Hudson Reporter named her number 6 on its 2012 list of Hudson County's 50 most influential people. Her Senate colleagues honored her with a ceremonial resolution on her final day in office in January 2024, and the New Jersey Reentry Corporation dedicated a computer lab in her name in March 2024. Jersey City's September 2026 proclamation for Mayor Glenn D. Cunningham Day also recognized her as the city's first African American First Lady.

Before entering politics she created and produced "Legalities," a cable access program about legal issues and services in Hudson County, and used it to interview candidates and voters in the 1989 Jersey City election. As a senator she appeared regularly on NJTV (now NJ Spotlight News), Hudson County View and Hudson Media Group's "Talking Politics," and the New Jersey Senate Democrats featured her in a Women's History Month video. She posted on X as @SandraBCunningh until 2022 and kept an official Facebook page.

In 2006 she pleaded guilty to operating a vehicle under the influence after a November 2005 incident in which, according to public records, her blood alcohol concentration was .18, and she paid a $708 fine. In March 2021 she was charged with driving while intoxicated after sideswiping two parked cars near her home; police body camera video of the arrest drew wide attention. She pleaded not guilty, and the case was later dismissed after prosecutors said they lacked the evidence to prove it, according to Hudson County View.

Her long absence from the Senate from June 2022 to January 2024, during which she did not resign and no public explanation was given, left the 31st District without an active senator and drew criticism. In 2026 the New Jersey Globe reported questions about who directed the final distribution of her campaign account to charities.

Cunningham was taken by ambulance to Jersey City Medical Center on October 4, 2022, and the New Jersey Globe reported a severe decline in her cognitive health. A Superior Court judge placed Jersey City attorney Matthew Burns in charge of her personal affairs. She did not return to the Senate and did not seek re-election in 2023. By 2026 the Globe reported she had been living in a memory-care unit for several years.

She died on October 6, 2026, at the age of 76. Her death was announced on October 7 by Hudson County Register Jeff Dublin, a close friend, as reported by Insider NJ, and by Hudson County View. The place and cause of death were not made public. Funeral arrangements had not been announced at the time of writing.