4 THE QUEENS COURIER • AUGUST 6, 2020 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
Small biz owners in Queens unite to demand help
BY JACOB KAYE
jkaye@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
Small business owners from across
Queens came together on the steps of
Queens Borough Hall to call for immediate
Queens Congress members honor life of Rep. John Lewis
BY BILL PARRY
bparry@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
Th e man known as the “Conscience of
the Congress” had a profound impact,
both professionally and personally
on three House members representing
Queens.
Civil rights titan Congressman John
Lewis, who represented Georgia’s Fift h
District in Congress for 34 uninterrupted
years, succumbed to Stage 4 pancreatic
cancer on July 17 at the age of 80.Queens
Rep. Gregory Meeks served with Lewis for
22 of those years and told QNS he cherishes
the time he spent with the “apostle
of nonviolence,” who had been the last
living member of the Big Six civil rights
activists who organized and marched with
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
“He was a remarkable man and his funeral
in Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church
was a celebration of the man and his life’s
work,” Meeks said following the July 30
funeral and burial. “I walked in full of sorrow
and I walked out thanking God for
knowing this man. Th e funeral was a wonderful
tribute to a great, great man. Th e
‘Boy from Troy’ may have been small in
stature but he was a giant. He was always
quiet and humble but if he was speaking
from the House fl oor he roared like a lion.”
Lewis was best known for leading the
1965 “Bloody Sunday: March across the
Edmund Pettus Bridge where he had
his skull fractured aft er he was beaten
by Alabama state troopers. At age
23 he was the youngest speaker at the
Lincoln Memorial during King’s “March
on Washington.”
Former President Barack Obama eulogizes
John Lewis calling him “a man of
pure joy and unbreakable perseverance.”
(REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer)
“It speaks to his legacy that three former
presidents — Obama, Bush and Clinton
— spoke at his funeral, and a fourth,
Jimmy Carter sent along
a statement as he is in
poor health,” Meeks
said. “Here was a man
who was attacked with
billy clubs, had bones
broken and was spit on
so many times yet he
never held bitterness
towards his attackers
over the years. He just
tried to show love and for
that, he changed America.”
Congresswoman Carolyn
Maloney, who represents parts of Queens,
served with Lewis since 1992 and called
him an incredible civil rights leader and
an even better man.
“I’m grateful to have stirred up some
good trouble together on the House fl oor
during our sit-in against gun violence, a
movement which spread to cities across
the country. It was just one in a million
ways he inspired the next generation of
activists to never stop fi ghting for justice
and equality,” Maloney said. “It was
an honor to join him during many of his
yearly trips to Selma, Alabama, to retrace
his and Martin Luther King Jr.’s steps
across the Edmund Pettus Bridge as we
not only honored the movement that they
started but also rededicated ourselves to
the mission of racial
justice. I will cherish
the memory
of joining him
and President
Obama there
to mark
the 50th anniversary of the march.”
Queens Rep. Grace Meng called Lewis a
giant and an icon of the civil rights movement.
“He was a remarkable and courageous
human being who fought and bled for
equality and justice,” Meng said. “He
never stopped being an activist. One
of my memories I have of John was sitting
with him on the fl oor of the House
when he led that sit-in protest to push
for tougher gun safety laws. It was serious.
It was peaceful. It was positive. It
was impactful.”
Meng cherishes a photo of Lewis and
her two sons Brandon and Tyler to remind
herself, them, and future generations of
how hard people fought for civil rights.
Congressman John Lewis with colleague
Grace Meng’s sons Brandon and
Tyler. (Courtesy of Meng’s offi ce)
“It is a reminder of the past and
future good trouble. John had such an
impact on my life and the lives of millions
of people throughout our nation,”
Meng said. “He was a hero to so many
of us. He believed in and fought for
a better America and we owe him an
immense debt of gratitude for all that
he did for our country. We must be
fearless like him. John’s legacy and the
inspiration and change he helped to
create will never be forgotten, and
I will always cherish the friendship
that we had. I ask all Americans to
keep him and his loved ones in our
thoughts and prayers.”
fi nancial relief to off set loses brought
on by the economic consequences of the
COVID-19 crisis on Wednesday, July 29.
Despite following COVID-19 protocols,
the local business owners said they are
drowning in debt, their bills are piling
up and rent is nearly impossible to pay.
Should help not come, many said they
face the prospect of closing for good.
Organized by Queens Together and the
Queens Chamber of Commerce, the rally
was supported by state Senator Michael
Gianaris’ Small Business Advisory
Committee, Business Improvement
District directors and a handful of elected
offi cials including Councilman Donovan
Richards, the front-runner in November’s
Queens borough president race.
“Th e leadership in this country has
made this a bailout for Wall Street rather
than Main Street. Th e bottom line is
that many of the small businesses, the
folks behind me and in front of me, are
folks who put everything into investing
in the American Dream,” Richards
said. “When they opened a small business
it was because they had that American
Dream of contributing to the economy, of
doing something diff erent, adding to the
culture and vibrancy of the borough, but
instead at this moment they now are suffering
a nightmare and partly because of
policies that have done everything, even
prior to COVID-19, to really not assist
small businesses.”
Business owners noted that the fi nancial
health of several local businesses is not the
only economic metric for the moment.
Some local businesses are owned by and
employ local people, they said.
“Small businesses are also families,” said
Roseann McSorley, the owner of Katch
Astoria. “We aren’t struggling only with
our store rents; we are also struggling with
our own home rents and costs of raising
our families, and when a business closes
its doors, it means dozens more families
are faced with personal hardship.”
Queens Together, a nonprofi t aimed at
battling food insecurity, made a list of recommendations
to local, state and federal
lawmakers to help aid struggling businesses.
Th e list includes a call for commercial
rent relief, collaboration between city
agencies, a local business focused reevaluation
of the city’s procurement process,
a permanent cap on the use of apps like
GrubHub and Seamless in New York City
and a new round of disaster grants.
Photo by Dean Moses
Th e group also demanded elected offi -
cials pressure insurance companies into
expediting access to business interruption
insurance claims, create tax incentives
to encourage property owners to rent
to tenant collectives and to expand existing
grant programs that have off ered businesses
relief during the pandemic.
“Our representatives need to understand
that if we continue to ignore the
impending disaster of small business closures,
we are looking at tens of thousands
of job losses in Queens alone, the destruction
of our neighborhood fabric, and the
decimation of livable Queens communities,”
saidJaime Bean, the co-founder of
Queens Together.
Additional reporting by Dean Moses.
Photo by Gary Osborne/REUTERS
Congressman John Lewis was remembered as a fearless
civil rights icon by three of his Queens colleagues.
Photo by Dean Moses
Small business owners from across Queens asked lawmakers for support at Queens Borough Hall on Wednesday, July 29, 2020.
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