Black Agenda Democratic Mayoral Candidate Forum at Medgar Evers College

By Mary Alice Miller
A standing room only crowd packed the DuBois Bunche Center auditorium at Medgar Evers College to witness the Black Agenda Democratic Mayoral Forum. The event was hosted in collaboration with the Brooklyn Democratic Party’s Black District Leaders and a coalition of Democratic clubs.

Eight Democratic candidates for mayor attended.
“As we all know, the most loyal voters to the Democratic Party are Black people,” said District Leader Henry Butler as he opened the event. “I think it’s time that the Democratic Party, particularly this Mayoral race, tell us Black people of Brooklyn and New York City what is your agenda for the Black community, the most loyal voters for this party.”

L. Joy Williams, president of the New York State NAACP Conference, reminded attendees about “the power of our vote when we vote collectively, and with purpose and strategy. Our real power is not invested in a particular candidate or particular campaign. Our real power lies within us and our vote and our ability to hold those who are elected to serve us accountable. It lives in what we demand, what we organize around, and what we are willing to fight for beyond Election Day. The Black Agenda is not a wishlist; it’s a blueprint for the survival and prosperity of Black New Yorkers.”

Former comptroller Scott Stringer said he wants to add 3,000 police officers to address overtime costs. He wants to extend the school day to 4:30 pm and suggested that the business community should contribute to the cost of early child care “because they get the benefit of people, mostly women, staying in the workforce and enhancing their companies.” Stringer said he would take fire trap buildings with rat infestations from landlords at fair market value and use eminent domain to rehab those buildings and build the next generation of affordable housing.

Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani suggested free buses and municipal grocery stores paid for by taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers and corporations. He wants to create a Department of Community Safety separate from the police department that would deal with homelessness, mental health crisis, gun violence, hate violence, and victim services.

Former Assembly member Rev. Michael Blake called Trump a “fascist, sexist demogogue” and said he was the first in the race to say “anytime they try to cut off our funds that we need to withhold sending our taxes to D.C.” Regarding housing and homeless shelters in Black communities, Blake said “We need a Local Median Income because AMI (Area Median Income) is not working for us.”

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams acknowledged endorsements from DC 37 and Attorney General Letitia James. The Council Speaker said she is suing the Adams administration over a Mayoral executive order allowing ICE to establish a presence on Riker’s Island. She said the City Council has been Trump-proofing New York City by setting aside $2 billion to protect our finances. Adams commissioned a steering committee on Black maternal health to address systemic racism.

Regarding gentrification Speaker Adams said, “We are making sure that we have opportunities that our Black and brown communities are upfront on these developments plans from the first meeting with developers. We are screening these developers and we are ensuring that until and unless they are working on behalf of our communities they get nowhere. Under my leadership in the Council we have sponsored 120,000 new units of housing. We have ushered through the mayor’s proposal for the City of Yes which the council turned into City for All because I insisted on an additional $5 billion… provisions to help out infrastructure for our flooding zones.”

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander said “My office did the first study of the racial wealth gap in New York City and what we found is it is 15 to 1 median household net worth: for a white New York family — $277,000 median household net worth; for a Black New York family — $17,000. Lander said his office has grown the pension funds to be the third largest in the country. “We’ve grown the funds managed by Black and Latino asset managers by 40%, by $6 billion.

Assemblywoman Jessica Ramos said she wants to “make the Summer Youth Employment Program year round so that young people stay busy” and she supports violence interruption programs to address gun violence. Ramos spoke about the “discrepancy in the way property tax is applied in New York City. There are several judicial decisions that say so. We need a mayor who’s going to deploy the Department of Finance to apply the law fairly. Regarding the disproportionate placement of homeless shelters in communities of color, Ramos said, “Our goal should be to make every single shelter obsolete. We are wasting taxpayer dollars in a shelter system that is extremely expensive instead of leading with a Housing First approach.”