Kevin Powell: Ascent of a Political Activist

Two years ago, when community activist and writer Kevin Powell campaigned for the 10th Congressional seat currently held by Ed Towns, he knew he would have to run again. “We always knew it would be at least a two campaign race,” said Powell. “When you are challenging an entrenched incumbent, it often takes two races.”
A lot has happened since then.
Powell has continued his monthly male development meetings, a grassroots attempt to nudge males to do what he has done: “re-think everything I know about manhood.” He was asked to assist several vacationing families in a sustained effort for justice in the Antigua and Barbuda. He wrote his 10th book, Open Letters to America. He testified before the United Nations regarding gender violence. And, as further evidence of his maturation, there have been no salacious headlines.
So far this year, Powell’s campaign has raised more money, from more people, than during his entire 2008 campaign. Most donations are small, coming from 40 states across the nation. More Brooklyn people have donated. Big names, such as Marlon Wayans, have contributed big bucks. Powell’s new campaign manager, communications and field directors are operating “scientifically,” down to the smallest election district. The one thing Powell was proudest of in his 2008 campaign, has carried over to this year: no behind the scenes drama.
Kevin Powell is happy, and looks content. Campaigning is an opportunity to do what he does – serve others. His 18 hour days start at 5:30 am with Facebook and Twitter posts. From Boerum Hill to Canarsie, East Williamsburg to East New York, Powell hits the streets, delivering constituent services, such as GED, housing, or criminal justice referrals. “We spend as much time as necessary talking to each voter,” Powell said. “We want to demonstrate while we are campaigning the kind of services we will provide, once we got into Congress.”
Spending a few minutes on www.KevinPowell.net, one can find a listing of all the diverse neighborhoods in the district, ethnic, gender, and income data. There is even a history of Brooklyn. “We want to make this an educational process,” he said. Most important for Powell, the complete Campaign Platform can be found on the site, everything from health care, criminal justice, seniors, and net neutrality to violence prevention, immigration, education, and worker rights.
“Bridge to the Future” is Kevin Powell’s campaign theme. At 44-years-old, Powell stands firmly in the post-Civil Rights generation. In 1984, he was introduced to politics through the Jesse Jackson Presidential campaign and the anti-apartheid movement. “During the last 26 years, there has been a perpetual generation divide in the Black community. You see it in electoral politics grassroots activism,. You see it in the literary/ journalism world. You see it in the artistic community, in the business world, You see it in church. You see it in our Civil Rights organizations.” said Powell. “I am no longer a person who points fingers at the Civil Rights generation. I do see a resistance to supporting young people.”
Powell explained, “But, I think that younger people – myself and folks in the generation behind me – have got to do what many of us have been doing. Do your own thing. Don’t wait for someone to pass you a baton. There is never going to be a baton passed. For me, I started writing professionally when I was 20. People I organized with – Ras Baraka, Sista Soulja – we were in our early 20’s. We didn’t wait for permission to organize around Howard Beach or Bensonhurst back then. We just did it. We could lament on the generational divide. Or, do what I recommend: identify people in the various generations who are progressive and want practical solutions for our communities, and work together.”
While campaigning on the streets, Powell said, “I barely hear anyone talk about Civil Rights issues. What people say they need are jobs, affordable housing, quality education, recreational/ community centers for young people, safe streets for seniors, foreclosure. It’s really basic. How do we deal with stop-and-frisk? In one housing project in ENY, just the other day, several tenants who didn’t know each other said the same thing to us: the police in this area are constantly stopping our young men, throwing them on the ground and frisking them. Checking their shoes, their socks, their underwear. A man in his 50’s, a grown man, a grandfather said the police did that to him. People are talking about quality of life issues.”
This is a new day, we need new terms. Civil rights is a term that belongs in the 20th century. We are in the 21st century. We need a new terminology, and it is definitely coming.
We have got to develop our communities in six basic ways: spiritually, politically, culturally, economically, and two areas we don’t talk about – physical health and mental wellness. It is about holistic development of our communities.
We got the Civil Rights bill and the Voting Rights Act. On a basic level, we have citizenship. The thing we missed, that Dr. King talked about at the end of his life, is economic justice.
It is not enough to have back elected officials if they are not doing their jobs. I am not voting for someone anymore just because they are Black. That is unacceptable. This is what I am hearing throughout the community, from young and older people. Jewish folks in Boerum Hill said this to me. Black and Latino people in East New York said this to me. It is unacceptable to have elected officials who we do not see on a regular basis, or their representatives, who are not accessible, who we feel don’t have the volume loud enough on issues of importance to us.
In response to a question about the replication of poverty every 15 years by young girls being impregnated and abandoned by adults, Powell said “The worst gap that exists in Black America since the 1969’s is the class gap.” He recalled his young mother, with a grade school education and his father who was in his 30’s when he got her pregnant. “He didn’t even show up at the hospital when I was born. There is no record of my father being anywhere around. Powell is my mother’s last name. Here I am, left to be raised on welfare, food stamps, government cheese, in tenement dwellings where it was normal to have not mice, but rats running everywhere. It was normal to have roaches everywhere, even inside the refrigerator, which was often broken so you couldn’t close it all the way. A lot of people don’t understand that kind of life, and what it does to you.”
Powell has been there. With gratitude, he said, “But for the grace of God and my mother’s vision for her child, which is me, and not accepting this is what we are destined to – a life of misery and doom. Unfortunately, what happens to a lot of us, particularly if we have low self-esteem, is we get stuck there.” Powell described an all too common situation in Black and brown communities, “If you are a young woman of color in a world where you are dealing with racism, and sexism, and classism, if you are 14-years-old, you have already been told you are nothing, and the only thing that is valuable about you is from your neck down. Then some man or older boy comes along. Next thing you know you are pregnant, or have an STD or one of the 92% of new cases NYC of Black and Latino women carrying the HIV virus. That is what happens. It becomes what Malcolm X called a vicious cycle not only in Brooklyn, but in Harlem, Oakland, New Orleans, Houston, all over the country. I travel to the Caribbean. It’s in Jamaica.”
According to Powell, “Unfortunately, we in this country confused Civil Rights and integration with progress for the entire community. That wasn’t the case. I don’t blame the young women or the young men. Many don’t know any better. They are carrying profound self hatred; when you hate yourself as a Black person, you will not only destroy yourself, you move to destroy other people who look like you.”
“The solution is simple, but complex,” Powell said. “We need more men like Kevin Powell, like Quentin Walcott, and Byron Hurt, to speak out loudly against all forms of sexism.” Powell said he used to be one of those men; only because of God and counseling, he has evolved.
Of all the issues Powell would like to address if and when he is elected to Congress, economic development is paramount. He said he went to Head Start pre-school. There was a free breakfast and lunch program at school, went to an after school program at the Y. His first summer job was a CETA job. During college, he got help from EOP. His mother got help with housing through voucher programs, like Section 8. “Those were all created by the government to give people a hand – not because we were lazy, shiftless, or intellectually inferior,” said Powell, “but because we were poor.”
Kevin Powell said quality of life issues require “a 21st century approach. The issues are what people say they need – jobs and job training.” If elected, Powell would like to serve on education, health, and economic development committees. He suggests small business incubators. “Most of the U.S. population is under 45 and technologically savvy. We al have a hand held device and email. We have to create some jobs and business opportunities that are about technology and the green economy, Powell said. “I look at all these abandoned buildings, including factories, here in the 10th congressional district. Imagine if some of those were turned into technology help centers. Those are low skill jobs that could be for people in this country, right here in Brooklyn. That is the type of issue I will be fighting for.”

Community Greets Freedom Party Slate

Once again, several hundred community members flocked to the Siloam Presbyterian Church. This time the occasion was the presentation of the complete Freedom Party Slate. Eva M. Doyle, candidate for Lieutenant Governor, came from Buffalo. Attorney General candidate Ramon Jimenez journeyed from the South Bronx.
Freedom Party Gubernatorial candidate Charles Barron was greeted with enthusiastic applause when he said, “Freedom Party! Freedom Party! I want you to meet together for the very first time Charles Barron for Governor, Lieutenant Governor candidate of our party Eva M. Doyle, and candidate for Attorney General Ramon Jimenez. I am so excited.”
Barron made this declaration: “I want to say to all gathered, we are going to get these signatures. We are going to get on the ballot. We are going to get more than 50,000 votes after we get on the ballot. And when we do, we are going to rock this state like it has never been rocked before. This will be the first time in the history of this state that we have a Black and Latino, Latino and Black-led party.  We welcome all to join our party. As you see in this room today, we have white supporters, and we thank you for your support.”
“It is time for this state to have a party of Black and Latino people unbought, unbossed and uncontrolled by the corporate interests in this state,” said Barron. “This is a party that is going to say no to war. The Freedom Party is saying no to balancing the budget on the backs of poor and working-class families in this state.”
Describing the current economic climate in New York State, Barron said, “Wall Street made $61 billion dollar profit last year, while everybody else was broke, in the middle of a economic crises. Tax the rich. What about a personal income tax surcharge: Those who make $500,000/ year – 1.5%;  one million a year/ 3.5%; five million a year/ 4.5%; those making ten million or more a year/ 5.5%. There are over 26 million people in NYS, only 63,000 people make that kind of money. If you tax them, you can get anywhere from $8-12 billion a year and the budget will be balanced.  How about a stock transfer tax – 10-15 cents on those stocks that are being transferred every year? You can get over $2 billion every year on a stock transfer tax. We will have a surplus.”
Barron outlined several other issues the Freedom Party will address. “We are the only party, the only team that is going to raise the question of police brutality and terror in our neighborhoods,” he said. “Not only stop-and-frisk, but also the abusive use of deadly force. They need to put down the guns and pick up some humanity and stop killing our people for no justifiable reason. We are going to be the only party that says to this nation that you have to rebuild and return our people to New Orleans. We are going to be the only party that says keep your welfare, keep your affirmative action, give us our reparations. It is a debt owed. We are going to be the only party that says the Black Panther Party, the Black Liberation Party members – those who are languishing in prison because of their political beliefs, their political actions – did their time.  Free our political prisoners.”
Barron closed his remarks by saying, “We are going to be the only party that says to this nation we are no longer going to sit back and allow you to put a racist state structure in NYS. That cannot happen. Fannie Lou Hamer got sick and tired of being sick and tired. She formed the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party for the same reason that we are starting the Freedom Party. Fannie Lou Hamer has to be smiling upon us. For you Fannie Lou Hamer, we say Freedom Party!”
In his introduction of the Freedom Party candidate for Lt. Gov., Barron said, “Mrs. Eva M. Doyle is an Afrocentric educator for 30 years. She has written several books. She writes for the Buffalo Criterion. Chrystal Peebles-Stokes, one of the legislators in Buffalo, said that when she heard that we had Mrs. Doyle with us, we got the most honorable, highly respected from Buffalo.”
Mrs. Doyle said, “I bring you greetings from a great number of hardworking people in Buffalo. We are excited about the Freedom Party. I brought with me today 300 signatures. As I speak now, brothers and sisters are on the battlefield in Buffalo collecting even more signatures.”
“I am doing double duty here,” said Doyle. “I am recording this for my newspaper column ‘Eye on History’, for the Criterion Newspaper, the oldest Black newspaper in western New York. I have been writing the column Eye on History for almost 32 straight years without stop. I describe it as the only weekly column on Black history in Western NY. I have taught as a teacher in the Buffalo public schools for 30 years. I believe in teaching Black history, not just in February but all year long.”
“As I was flying into NY, I thought about the Statue of Liberty. I told my students that the original Statue of Liberty was that of a Black woman,” Mrs. Doyle said. “The tablet she holds in her hand is a symbol of the Abolitionist Movement. I have written 11 books. When I finish this book on the Black Statue of Liberty, it will be my 12th book. I tell my students that Black history is all around us, even on the dollar bill.”
Eva Doyle told the crowd how she came to be on the ticket. “When I was asked to become candidate for Lt. Gov. under the Freedom Party, I must tell you I did not immediately say yes. As a matter of fact, I said no. I can’t do this,” she said. “But then something started to happen. People in Buffalo started to call me. Erie County legislator Billie Jean Grant said, ‘Please give this a little more thought.’ Attorney Alton Maddox called me just about every day. He is the most persuasive attorney I have ever met. Mr. Ted Perkins is the host of a radio show in Buffalo called Perkins Corner. I was listening to his show, relaxing. Alton Maddox was on the show and asked ‘Who do you think would be a good candidate for lt. gov.?’ Mr. Perkins said, ‘Well, what about Eva Doyle?’ I almost fell out of my chair.”
Mrs. Doyle gave two reasons why she accepted. She said she is participating “in the memory and spirit of the great Fannie Lou Hamer.” Mrs. Doyle spoke of her husband. “I lost my husband last March 2009. Brother Romeo Muhammad. We were married 44 years. If Brother Romeo was here, he would be in this room. He would be behind me 150%. Brother Romeo was a member of the Nation of Islam for 42 straight years. Now I am a member of the church – First Shiloh Baptist Church in Buffalo, New York.  A lot of people have asked me ‘How did you get along with Brother Romeo, a member of the Nation of Islam, and you are a member of the church?’ My husband always believed no matter what religion you were in, what faith you had, we are all Black people.  We are in the same struggle. I know Brother Romeo is smiling down on us. I know Brother Romeo would give me his blessings. He would have beat me to New York City. He would have paved the way, shaking everybody’s hand.”
Barron fought back tears while introducing Freedom Party candidate Ramon Jimenez. “When we think of Ramon, we think of Richie Perez,” Barron said. “Richie Perez was my friend. Whenever we wanted to bring the African-American and Latino community together, we called Richie Perez. I know he is smiling on us now, watching Ramon carry that mantle of making sure Blacks and Latinos stick together. Ramon comes in the spirit of Richie Perez.
Ramon Jimenez: “It is good to be back home. I was a Brooklynite until I was 8 years old. In the Bronx, we have a lot of struggles taking place. We have the Yankee Stadium struggle, where $1.5 billion was spent to build a mega-palace in the poorest congressional district in the United States.  They promised jobs. Let me tell you how many community people got a job in the demolition of Yankee Stadium. One.”
“The Freedom Party is about a movement. We are the mere instruments of that movement,” Jimenez said. “I have organized the South Bronx for many years. When I organized tenants, they are Black and Latino. When I organize parents, they are Black and Latino. When I work with the Woodlawn workers, they are Black and Latino. On the streets, at the base, Black and Latino unity is there every day.”
According to Jimenez, “Historically, some of the greatest movements took place in NY – City College, the movement for Black and Puerto Rican Studies, the Jesse Jackson campaign, saving Hostos Community College. Sometimes we don’t understand unity politics. The rich understand unity politics. The landlords, when they have to come together, come together. When the developers have to come together, come together over their common interests. We let little things divide us. This is the time. We got the biggest slap in the face with what the Democratic Party did. It is not just the Democratic Party. I used to work for the Workers’ Compensation Board as a judge. I used to be the head judge. In the 1980′s when I was a judge, there were 5 or 6 Black and Latino commissioners. Today, there is one Black commissioner. In the 1980′s when I was a judge, there were 15 Black and Latino judges at Worker’s Comp. Today, there is one.  It’s not just the Democratic Party. It is all over.  In a city that is 35% white, 70% of Bloomberg’s managers are white and Blacks and Latinos are being locked out.”
“It is a great honor to be invited to be a part of this ticket. We need a Freedom Party,” Jimenez said. “If we don’t have a Freedom Party, who is going to raise the issue of Wall Street being taxed? Do you think Andrew Cuomo or Rick Lazio is going to raise it? Who is going to raise the issue of gentrification? In an article the other day, Cuomo was investigating housing discrimination. I thought to myself, ‘You are late. It is the end of your term, and you just discovered discrimination in housing?’ In the South Bronx, we have tenant groups, antiviolence groups. The Freedom Party is the only one to talk about their issues. We have a chance to make history. I don’t want to rise from my people; I want to rise with my people! Freedom Party!”
Several whites were in attendance, including two ladies from the Million Worker March Movement. One said, “New York has been a place of Democratic seats having a lot of power. Republicans obviously don’t offer any alternative. Neither party is representing working-class people. In fact, they have taken a very strong pro-Wall Street stance. The laws that exist in the state of New York, like the Taylor Law that prohibits the public sector from striking, has taken the teeth right out of the labor movement. I think that this kind of party is a development that is giving grounds for more progressive politics, for more participation of the average person, who are not represented locally, not represented in Congress. Our tax dollars are used, but we don’t get the benefit.  Workers are not being represented.  We are asked to work, pay the taxes, bear the brunt of all the crises capitalists have thrust upon us. And we don’t get the benefits of it. I think this party will provide a potential platform for people to become politically active, put their demands forward, fight for them and force concessions.”
Kevin Powell, Democratic candidate for congress in the 10th Congressional District in Brooklyn. “I am a Democrat, but I came to listen and show support for Charles Barron and the folks here because they supported my campaign. I support third, fourth, fifth parties in this country. We need more than one or two parties. I definitely support that. I just want to listen. That is why I am here – to listen.”

Medgar Evers College Commemorates Domestic Violence Month

Domestic violence came close to home this year at Medgar Evers College. Two days after the beginning of the semester, a tragic case of domestic abuse occurred on the streets near the college.

On a bright, sunny afternoon student Kaidan Ramsey, 22, was confronted by her enraged husband, Lenox Ramsey, 25, as she was entering the campus. Lenox Ramsey dragged Kaidan down the street. According to witnesses, when she broke free, desperately screaming for help, Ramsey chased Kaidan, grabbed her arm and screamed, “I got a gun, don’t —- with me!” After Ramsey fired two warning shots into the air to scatter the crowd, Lenox shot Kaidan twice in the back. Kaidan was taken to Kings County Hospital in stable condition. She survived the attack. Police arrested Lenox shortly after the incident. Lenox Ramsey told detectives he thought his wife was having an affair with a fellow Medgar Evers student.

Kaidan had moved out of the couple’s home three days earlier. Lenox, a security guard, was known to frequently fight with his wife and fellow residents in the couple’s apartment building in Brownsville, according to neighbors.

The horrific incident was recorded on a nearby surveillance camera.

On Monday, October 19th at 1:30 pm, the Male Development and Empowerment Center (MDEC) will host a special domestic violence forum in the Founders Auditorium. The gathering, entitled “Domestic Violence: Moving Men from Allies to Activists,” is designed for male students as part of an ongoing effort to address the issue of domestic violence from a male perspective.

“We are trying to raise awareness amongst men,” said Larry Martin, director of the Male Development and Empowerment Center, “and attempting to educate and re-educate our men about their personal responsibility in ending men’s violence against women.”

Special guest speakers are community voices who work with men on a wide variety of issues. Quentin Walcott is program director of CONNECT Training Institute (CTI) – an organization whose mission is to expand the number of professionals and community members who have a deep understanding of the dynamics and consequences of violence in the family. By providing intensive training, CTI participants with tools necessary to develop community-based solutions for the complex problem of family violence. Lumumba Bandele is a SEEK program instructor and domestic violence activist. Kevin Powell is a community activist, author and Male Development spokesman who has spoken and written extensively on the issue of domestic violence.

Through this event, MDEC hopes to prompt a discussion that assists men in identifying abusive tendencies, educates them on avenues for finding help with this issue, and trains those who are faced with this difficult situation on means of safely intervening.

“We are targeting men and what they can do,” said a spokesperson for Medgar Evers President William L. Pollard. This year’s gathering, in recognition of Domestic Violence Month, is part of President Pollard’s overall mission to make Medgar Evers College a “student-centered campus.”
The event is open to the community.