Aminisha Black: A Legacy Preserved on the Block where she once lived

.. working with neighbors, she saved a house; working with people in the community, she inspired a love for words.

Next year marks the 20th anniversary of the appearance of Aminisha Black’s Parent’s Notebook in Our Time Press. The esteemed late writer-educator’s column was hugely popular with Our Time Press readers in Brooklyn and beyond. But there was more to Aminisha.

She loved her community, and worked to preserve what was good about it. In 2006, Aminisha, a former Block Association president, worked with Lefferts Place past presidents, writer David Conrad and Raymond Harris, along with friends, supporters and community leaders, such as then-City Councilwoman Letitia James, Al Vann, Patti Hagan and the organizational descendants of Father Divine’s International World Peace Mission to save the James W. and Lucy S. Elwell House, pre-Civil War mansion, from complete demolition.

The house was owned and occupied for some years by IWPM for more than two decades, purchased from the family of the original owners. David Conrad wrote the story of his block’s elevation of the property to historic landmark status in an essay for Our Time At Home’s premier Winter 2006-2007.

The issue featured a story, To Have and To Hold … Generations Building Together by Aminisha Black & Kojo Campbell (Aminisha’s grandson). It is reprinted below. Aminisha touched lives. She originated and led a Scrabble Club for young people and their parents at the Magnolia Tree Earth Center of Bedford-Stuyvesant. We met her through Professor William Mackey in the basement of 850 St. Marks, where she held workshops for mothers.

-B.Elizabeth Green