The rise of Black elected offi cials in New York
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, FEBRUARY 1 BTR 18-24, 2022 49
BY STEPHEN WITT
stephen.witt@amny.com
Every success has a foundation
and the cornerstone to
the rise of Black political leadership
in New York belongs
to Andrew W. Cooper (1927-
2002)., the little-known civil
rights hero who blew open
the door for Black politics in
Brooklyn and New York State.
Cooper, born and raised in
Bedford-Stuyvesant, was working
for Brooklyn-based beer
company when the Federal
Voting Rights Act of 1965 was
passed. At the time, however,
New York had its own voting
rights issue in that even
though the majority of Bedford
Stuyvesant was Black and
Puerto Rican, the neighborhood
was divided among five
congressional districts, each
represented by a white Congressmember.
In 1966, Cooper successfully
challenged this gerrymandering
in federal court, Cooper v.
Power, resulting in the Feds
stepping in to create a special
Voting Rights District. It was in
this district that in 1968, trailblazer
Shirley Chisholm was
the first black woman ever
elected to the U.S. Congress.
Cooper went on to found the
Trans Urban News Service and
The City Sun, (1984-1996). In
1987, the National Association
of Black Journalists awarded
him Journalist of the Year.
Fast forward to the present,
and the city and state have a
number of Black-Americans
who now stand on the shoulders
of unsung heroes like Cooper
and others, who now hold
the very top of elected offices
representing all people. Here is
our top five:
Mayor Eric Adams
Mayor Adams’ first attempt
at public office was an
unsuccessful attempt to unseat
former Congressman Major
Owens. He registered as
a Republican in 1997, before
switching back to the Democratic
Party in 2001, and won
his first elected seat in 2006
as a state senator representing
Brooklyn’s 20 Senate District.
He served four terms, until he
was elected Brooklyn Borough
President in 2013.
Quotable: “When we uplift
the African Americans and
acknowledge Black History
Month, we’re acknowledging
that this is a country where
everyone has the opportunity
to aspire. When you can leave
the slave plantations and then
become the mayor of this important
city, that says to every
group in this country that the
possibilities are endless,” Adams
told CBS2’s Marcia Kramer.
Attorney General Letitia James
James went to NYC public
schools, and received her J.D.
degree from Howard University
School of Law. She started
in politics working on former
New York Governor Mario Cuomo’s
Task Force on Diversity in
the Judiciary, and then served
as counsel for former Assemblymember
Albert Vann, and
Chief of Staff for former Assemblymember
Roger Green,
followed by a stint in the administration
of New York Attorney
General Eliot Spitzer.
She served two terms in the
city council (2004-2013) and
as the City’s Public Advocate
(2014-2018) before becoming
Attorney General.
Quotable: “At a young age
around 14, my brother was
falsely arrested. And my mom
took me down to criminal
court. And I was the younger
girl in criminal court and everyone
in the courtroom except
the defendants did not
look like me. And I can always
remember a court officer who
told my mother to sit down
and to shut up simply for asking
the question, ‘Where is my
son?’ And I vowed at that point
in time, to never allow any
mother or grandmother to be
disrespected in a courtroom,”
James said on a WBLS radio station
YouTube interview.
State Senate Majority Leader
Andrea Stewart-Cousins
After working 20 years in the
private sector, Stewart-Cousins,
and then was elected as a Westchester
County Legislator representing
Yonkers (1995-2006)
before becoming elected to the
Senate in 2006. She became the
Senate Majority Leader in 2012,
becoming the first woman to
lead her conference in the New
York Legislature.
Quotable: “I often say that if
you can see it, you can be it. I
am standing on the shoulders
of Black women in politics who
came before me, I look towards
women like Shirley Chisholm
who took on insurmountable
challenges and made it possible
for people like me to reach
powerful places. While I may
be the first Black woman to
serve as a leader of a legislative
conference in New York State, I
must not be the last.”
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie
Born and raised in NYC,
Heastie’s background is in
mathematics and finance.
He is the former chair of the
Bronx Democratic Party (2008-
2015) and was first elected to
the assembly in 2001, and became
Speaker in 2015.
Quotable:” I have an MBA
in finance, but I took management
classes, and they talked
about three types of leaders.
There’s a dictator, but that
only gets you so far because,
at some point, people get tired
of being dictated to. Then you
have laissez-faire, which is
anything goes, and that’s just
organized chaos. But the other
type is a democratic leader,
and I always felt that was the
best way to lead,” Heastie from
an interview with the National
Conference of State Legislatures.
Public Advocate Jumaane
Williams
Born and raised in Brooklyn,
Williams began his career as a
community activist before being
elected to the City Council
(2010-2019), and then to the
Public Advocate (2019-present).
Quotable: “I remember people
clutching their purses as I
asked for the time, being followed
in stores. You live with
this, and it drips, and drips
and drips, and it gets into a
bucket, and that bucket will
at some times overflow. As an
elected official I try to make
my overflow as constructive as
possible.” As told to PIX11 on
being Black in America.
black history month
From left, Andrew W. Cooper (1927-2002), Attorney General Letitia James, State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, Public Advocate Jumaane
Williams and Mayor Eric Adams (below). File photos
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