THANK YOU TO OUR
NYC WOMAN OF IMPACT
CLASS OF 2022
Caribbean Life, F 24 ebruary 18-24, 2022
Black History Month
ELECTED
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tempt at public offi ce 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 fi rst 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 offi cer 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
fi rst 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 fi rst 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 fi -
nance. He is the former chair of the
Bronx Democratic Party (2008-2015)
and was fi rst elected to the assembly
in 2001, and became Speaker in 2015.
Quotable:” I have an MBA in fi -
nance, 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 overfl ow. As
an elected offi cial I try to make my overfl
ow as constructive as possible.” As told
to PIX11 on being Black in America.
Eric Adams on election night.. Photo by Tsubasa Berg
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