Vincentian community activist Douglas “Doug King” Howard. Douglas “Doug
King” Howard
Caribbean Life, June 26-July 2, 2020 3
By Nelson A. King
Brooklyn Democratic Party chair
Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte on
Wednesday congratulated the apparent
winners in Tuesday’s New York Primary
Elections.
“As we wait for the unprecedented
number of absentee ballots to be counted,
I want to congratulate the apparent
winners across Brooklyn, and express
my respect for those who may have fallen
short but took part in the electoral process
that underpins our democracy,” said
Bichotte, the daughter of Haitian Americans,
who represents the 42nd Assembly
District in Brooklyn, in a statement.
“We’re all Democrats, and I look
forward to working with our new and
returning incumbents in the federal,
state and city Legislatures and the State
Committee members/district leaders on
the Brooklyn Democratic Party executive
committee,” she added. “We are all
Democrats, and we are all committed to
creating a more progressive and equitable
future for all Brooklynites.
“Now that the voters have spoken,
their choices will be clear once the
absentee ballots are counted,” Bichotte
continued. “It is time to turn our attention
to the general elections, where we
must all work together to ensure a greater
Democratic majority in Albany, the
United State Senate returns to Democratic
hands, and we send Joe Biden to
the White House.”
Last week, Bichotte released a list of
endorsed candidates in federal, state and
city elections, urging all Democrats to
vote absentee early or at their polling
place on Primary Day, June 23.
Bichotte said she wanted Democrats
to have “progressive control of legislative
bodies in the Democratic State Committee,
as well as on the judicial bench, and
to make sure those who serve in City
Hall, Albany and Washington will deliver
social justice.
By Nelson A. King
With heightened attention being paid
to racial discrimination amid expansive
protests against police brutality and
discrimination in the wake of the killing
a George Floyd, an African American,
by a white police officer in Minneapolis,
a long-standing Vincentian
community activist in Brooklyn has
been speaking about his own personal
experiences with racial discrimination.
Douglas Howard, otherwise known
as “Doug King Howard,” who heads
the Brooklyn-based, non-political Vincentian
group Vincy Liberators, U.S.A.
Inc., told Caribbean Life on Tuesday
that his first encounter with racism
in the US occurred in March 1981 in
Mobile, Ala, nearly two years after he
migrated to the US from St. Vincent
and the Grenadines.
Howard said that, at the time, the
Hayse brothers had hung Michael
McDonald for having a relationship
with their sister.
“The people with whom I was living
with at the time were so worried about
me walking from the movie theater to
home at night,” he said.
Howard said the second occurrence
took place on a Sunday afternoon in
August 1981, when he was travelling
from Orange, Tx to Cameron, LA.
“I pulled into a gas station in Hackberry,
LA; a car pulled out from the
gas station, and I pulled in,” he said.
“I pulled up to the pump to get gas,
and the attendant told me there was
no gas.
“I asked: ‘What you mean there is no
gas; you just sold the gas to the driver
of the car that was right here,’” Howard
added. “His response was, ‘we don’t
service niggers.’”
Shocked by the remarks, Howard
said he “started my car and drove off.”
“I decided that I was moving back
to New York City, because the South
was becoming too much (for racial discrimination)
because of my skin color,”
he said.
Howard said after returning to New
York City in 1983, he discovered that
racial discrimination was “10 times
worst than in the South.”
As a delivery truck driver for 12
years, he said he “had to deal with a lot
of glass ceiling racism.
“I found out the police were 10 times
worst in East New York, where I lived,
than those people in Hackberry, LA,”
Howard said.
But while claiming that racism is
rampant in the New York Police Department
(NYPD), Howard said he thought
it would be less so in the construction
industry, which he joined in September
1994.
“I became a member of Local Union
731 only to find out what racism is
really about,” he said. “You have to work
10 times as hard as a white man just to
break even.”
For about 27 years, Howard said
he became “the no.1 watermain and
hydrant installer in New York City,” and
was only offered a foreman job twice, “of
which I turned down.”
“I remember the days when I was
laid off in the winter months only to see
some white boys who couldn’t even read
a tape measure working through those
winter months,” he said. “I’ve seen
Black women discriminated against
when the supervisors refused to bring a
decent bathroom for them to use.
“I’ve seen them hire Black guys only
to lay them off and replace them with
white boys, who just came out of high
school or college and couldn’t find a
job,” Howard added. “These Black men
have children in college, high school,
(and have) mortgages to pay, families to
feed, only to be replaced by white boys
living at home with their parents, while
the Black brother is collecting unemployment,
no medical insurance from
the union for their families and walking
to different construction sites day and
night seeking employment.
“This is New York City as I seen from
the 1980s up until this present day,”
he continued. “Nothing has changed;
the only thing is, now, they are being
caught on camera.
“Worst of all, I have a friend who
is suffering from a bladder infection
because she held her urine in too long,
because of not having a decent place
to use it,” Howard said. “This is from
one of the largest construction companies
in New York City. “This is what
I live with every day. Racism is alive
and well.”
Howard said he was 16 years old when
teachers struck, in September 1975, in
St. Vincent and the Grenadines, leaving
a huge indentation on his psyche.
“I witnessed some of the most wicked
situations; and, from that day I decided
to leave St. Vincent and the Grenadines,”
he said.
Four years after migrating to the
US, Howard said he became involved in
social activities with Randall Robinson
and his Washington, D.C.-based group,
TransAfrica, who were in the vanguard
of freeing the late South African leader
Nelson Mandala and ending South
Africa’s system of racial segregation or
Apartheid.
Then, after joining the New York
group, the United African Movement,
led by “Attorney-at-War” Alton Maddox
and civil rights activist the Rev. Al
Sharpton, Howard said he “got involved
in the Aristide situation in Haiti, the
re-election of (former US President) Bill
Clinton, and then police brutality over
the years — from Elenore Bumpus to
Amadou Diallo, to Abner Louima and
many others.”
Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte
in her offi ce in Flatbush.
Photo by Caroline Ourso
Vincy community activist relates
experiences with racial discrimination
Dem Party boss
congratulates
apparent
winners