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Medgar Evers College/CUNY and the entire New York City community mourn the passing of Mary Pinkett, who made history in November 1973 as the first African-American woman elected to the City Council.
In addition to her work on the City Council, Pinkett was proud to have served as the President of Social Service Employees Union Local 371. Her experiences as a labor advocate provided her with the determination and strength that marked her tenure in the City Council.
Representing District 35 (Clinton Hill, Fort Greene, parts of Crown Heights, Prospect Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant), Pinkett served as chair of the Civil Service and Labor Committee, as the first chair of the Committee on Aging, as chair of the Committee of Governmental Operations, and as a member of the Finance, Education, and Federal and State Legislation Committees. Throughout her career, she served with an unswerving sense of social justice and a dogged determination to achieve results.
A NYC Councilmember since 1974, Ms. Pinkett served in the City Council nearly twenty-seven years. She was proudest of her accomplishments in the development of Downtown Brooklyn, ensuring the inclusion of minority vendors in the project. She also focused her efforts on revitalizing housing, specifically in the Atlantic Village Housing in her area. During her service on the City Council, she rose to prominence as Chair of the Governmental Operations Committee.
When she first came to the City Council, Pinkett was assigned to the basement as a junior member.
AI sat near Bobby Wagner, Jr., Henry Stern, Stanley Steingut. Immediately I said, >We need better working conditions. We need money for staff. We need a union here.= I finally paid for a district office out of my own funds,@ Pinkett reported in a recent interview with Linda Schleicher of SSEU local 371.
As chair of the Civil Service and Labor Committee, Pinkett fought to improve working conditions and to halt privatization. Pinkett also fought for her community, securing many millions for projects in her district, including Medgar Evers College, many senior centers, and for  programs in Bedford-Stuyvesant. AA lot of what I have done and who I am comes from my church experience and from trade unionsCworking with people for people. The most important thing is delivering services to the people you serve. And no one is going to give it to you. You have to stand up if you believe you are right.@
AWhen I went to the City Council, I was the first black woman and one of the only union representatives who had ever been elected,@ Pinkett told the publication AThe Unionist@ in January 2002. AThere were other women, but they were more traditional.@
SSEU Local 371 presented Councilmember Pinkett with a Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding service at the 1999 Black History Celebration. More recently, Medgar Evers College named a Lecture Hall in the new Student Support Services Building in memory of Councilmember Pinkett.  She retired because of term limits in 2001. Her council, filled by James Davis, who was fatally shot by a political rival at City Hall this summer, is now held by Tish James.
She died Thursday, December 5, 2003 at age 77 and is survived by her husband, William, a retired  NYC Board of Education administrator.

The federal government is about to strip New York State agencies of the power to enforce state consumer-protection laws that prohibit many cases of abusive lending, according to Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
Last year, the Washington-based Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which oversees many of the nation=s largest banks, such as Citibank, drafted a proposed rule change that would supercede state laws and give the OCC primary responsibility for investigating and punishing nationally chartered banks C and their subsidiaries C if they engage in predatory lending.
AOur capacity to address the issue of predatory lending is being taken away from us,@ Mr. Spitzer said at a press conference in December. AIt is a horrendous policy decision.@
The OCC could make the new rule final any day. Mr. Spitzer and the attorneys general of 45 other states recently called on the OCC to drop the change.
 AThey=re giving a road map to the map guys on how to avoid prosecution and regulation,@ Mr. Spitzer said. AThey have come to the playing field late, and only to protect the large banks.@
   The agency dismissed the criticism. AThe OCC has been doing supervision of the national banking system since it was chartered by the National Banking Act with the full support of Abraham Lincoln C that=s how far back we go,@ said Kevin Mukri, an agency spokesman. AThis organization is very vocal, very public, and very aggressive in its pursuit of not tolerating predatory lending.@
 AWhat we=re seeing here is a transparent power grab by the national bank regulator,@ said Sarah Ludwig of the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project. AAll New Yorkers will be affected if the OCC carries out its plans.@

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Farewell to a Pioneer
The death of councilwoman Mary Pinkett last month wasn=t supposed to come as a surprise. For years, the word in political circles was that she was sick, getting on in years, and feeling her age. I didn=t believe a word of it.
 I=d been hearing since the 1980s that Pinkett was getting old and thinking about retirement, and always discounted the talk. Black politicians never retire, I would tell people. They stay for decades, and never get beaten; you generally have to wait until they are carried out.
On the other hand, a good many longtime politicians regularly float rumors of their supposed retirement as a way to flush out potential opponents. The incumbent then turns out to be far from feeble, and the impatient upstarts are ruthlessly crushed. It happens all the time.
So it was with wide open eyes that I managed the 1991 campaign of Peter Williams, a friend from the Lafayette Gardens projects who had grown up to be a public policy wizard. Pete ran against Pinkett and lost.
A few years later, in 1997, I ran against her myself and was trounced, 52% to 29%. Bringing up the rear in that race was a rival, soon to be a friend, named James Davis.
Pete, James and I campaigned on essentially the same slogan: The black community needs new and younger leadership. It was, and remains, a serious problem.
Go to any distressed inner-city community and you will routinely find key institutions C churches, schools, newspapers, civic organizations, political offices C whose leadership turns over maybe once every 30 or 40 years. Along the way, a vast amount of homegrown talent and enthusiasm is shunned, suppressed, deliberately discouraged, or otherwise squandered.
 Every  year young black professionals with a passion for public service return to their neighborhoods with newly-minted degrees, only to meet with wary skepticism C or even outright hostility C from the same elders who sent them off to college with a small scholarship and an admonition to return someday.
That talent, in short order, ends up migrating outside the community in a kind of brain drain that inner-city neighborhoods can ill afford.
The main thing that we then-young Turks failed to appreciate was the mentality of the voters who had elected pioneers such as Pinkett in the first place. Pinkett=s generation C her base of support throughout her career C came of age in a deeply segregated nation, decades before the Civil Rights Movement.
Born in 1926, Pinkett was a teenager when Harlem=s Adam Clayton Powell became the first black representative ever elected to the city council  in 1941. Decades later, Pinkett became the first black woman ever elected to the council C in 1973, at age 47.

For Pinkett=s cohort, every bit of social progress was hard-fought and a long time in coming, which taught them to operate with a high degree of caution. From their point of view, the reelection of Pinkett was a matter of defensive logic: Since it took more than 300 years to get the first black woman elected to the city council, she should be supported by black voters no matter what, lest that gain be taken away.
Pinkett was, for many of my neighbors, the first and only black city official they=d ever had a chance to vote for C and many of them, or their parents, grew up in the South at a time when trying to vote at all was a good way to get forced out of a job, physically assaulted, or much worse. Compared to that, who cared what some smart-talking youngsters with fancy palm cards had to say?
In the 1980s, Pinkett weathered a few spirited challenges from a local activist named Katie Davis C including one gripping sequence, shortly before Election Day, in which Pinkett=s son died tragically: It=s generally believed that he committed suicide by leaping to his death from a balcony in the towers on Lafayette Avenue where the Pinkett family lives.
The councilwoman grieved briefly, then hastily returned to the campaign trail and won yet again. As she once told an interviewer, her career as a labor union official and politician had taught her a simple rule: ADo whatever it takes to win.@
I learned this the hard way on primary day in 1997, when it was known that it would be Pinkett=s final reelection bid because of the recently passed term-limits law. I was working the polling site right outside Pinkett=s building, in what I imagined was a display of confidence.
 Somebody in the complex sounded the alarm. Within minutes, a campaign van pulled up and, right on cue, Pinkett=s army slowly came pouring out of the buildings C hordes of senior citizens, many of them struggling down DeKalb Avenue on canes and walkers. It was the people who had built the neighborhood, fought for it, and stood by their councilwoman for 28 years.
The old folks seemed glad to see me. They smiled and politely shook my hand. Then they went into the booth and pulled the lever for Mary Pinkett, one last time.

Most New Yorkers probably don=t believe what=s happening in downtown Brooklyn. They just cannot understand how a big developer could actually draw up a project that would completely change a community without first consulting the people who own homes, rent apartments, and send their children to school in the area.
It sounds like something that Saddam Hussein would have done in a Kurdish community or the way American troops would treat a Baathist area. These residents cannot believe that their Mayor, their Boro President and their Speaker would support the developer=s plan without first coming to the people who voted them into office.
A television host interviewing State Senator Velmanette Montgomery and Councilman David Yassky thought for sure that these two representatives of the area had been consulted. So when Montgomery remarked that neither the developers nor the elected officials pushing the plan had spoken to her the interviewer clearly thought that she was not being quite truthful. So he turned to Yassky and asked him whether he had been consulted. Yassky, somewhat reluctantly, admitted that no one had as yet spoken to him.
The interviewer was definitely stunned. He expressed absolute amazement that the drawings and plans for the area had been completed and were being presented as a done-deed to the people who live in the community and to the people who were elected to represent them.
Even if the project had been perfect, and improved the community in every way, Bruce Ratner and the politicians owed these residents the respect of consulting with them through the officials who represent them. Ratner would never dare to pull a stunt like this in the communities where Gifford Miller, or Mike Bloomberg have their homes. It just wouldn=t happen, and it shouldn=t be happening in downtown Brooklyn.
It should come as no surprise to these residents that Borough President Marty Markowitz is a major promoter of this project. Marty is absolutely true to form. Quick. Think of something Marty has done in the area of Education, Housing, Homelessness, Jobs, Crime. This Borough President wasn=t elected because of substance. He was elected because he is a great entertainer. In more than two decades as State Senator Marty always put entertainment first with nothing else second. His colleagues in Albany often complained that Marty spent most of his time and energy into arranging his Concerts. So the Ratner project is perfect for Marty. This is his dream. He can move his concerts from Wingate Field to the new stadium where he will strut in splendor in his white tuxedo.
On the other hand Councilwoman Tish James has already proved to be a serious elected official and has passed her first test with flying colors. She never hesitated to support the residents of her community and we do not believe that her predecessor James Davis would have been as steadfast and reliable. Regrettably, most of the politicians who were willing to sign petitions and join the demonstration to prevent Assemblyman Clarence Norman from being indicted for grand larceny and extortion were not there to stand with Brooklyn residents whose community is being hijacked. The message is that although these politicians will join forces to protect each other in trouble, they disappear when the time comes to support voters who are under attack.
There are other troubling messages. Footnotes is always concerned about the integrity of elected officials who align themselves with major developers or who have problems supporting community activists against big money. Maybe its being cynical, but we always wonder whether secret deals are being cut behind the scenes for campaign support, and contracts for loved ones. We have heard stories about elected officials and contractors connected with elected officials who made millions off of Metro-Tech. It makes us think that former City Councilman Angel Rodriguez was not one of a kind, and that downtown residents should be keeping a very close watch on Brooklyn=s elected officials.

AIf they were alive, they would say, >We have
no names, no faces, but we are you!=@  Kadiatou Diallo
Grassroots Soldiers
In May 1991, the truth about American history began to unfold.  Through an extraordinary kind of séance, the ancestors began to speak to their descendants, revealing a truth selectively omitted from this nation s history.  Some never wanted these truths told  but by America=s own standards of justice, to tell only part of the truth is to tell a lie!  The ancestors would not stand for it, as they inspired a diverse group, representing the 20,000 or more buried in the Old Negro Burial Ground, to right this nation=s lie so that African-Americans would neither forget the richness of their culture nor their value to this country.
These truths were self-evident at the first of five tributes for the ARites of Ancestral Return@ at Howard University=s Rankin Chapel.  The chosen ones exhaled at an emotional ceremony, among hundreds, as they revealed the horrors experienced by 16th-century African people in New York City and, presumably, in other northern states.  The accounts characterize their conclusions of an 11-year study of the ancestral remains found in lower Manhattan.  We extend our deepest respect to those chosen vessels who studied, researched and analyzed for more than a decade to deliver these truths as inspired.  They include:  Michael L. Blakey, Ph.D. (team leader, skeletal biology); Edna Greene Medford, Ph.D. (historian); Warren R. Perry, Ph.D. (archeology); Mark E. Mack, M.A. (biological anthropology); Lesley M. Rankin-Hill, Ph.D. (skeletal biology); Alan Goodman, Ph.D. (chemical studies, skeletal biology); Fatimah L. C. Jackson, Ph.D. (genetics, skeletal biology); Leonard G. Bianchi, M.S. (lab, archeology); James A. Donaldson, Ph.D. (project manager); and O. Jackson Cole, Jr., Ph.D. (project executive). 
This team of scientists were but a few of the vessels selectively chosen by the ancestors.  As a first line of defense the ancestors summoned grassroots soldiers to protect America=s true history and ensure its all-inclusiveness.  The soldiers filed right into place.  In fact, the sequence of events at that unfolding can be compared to that of a divine army:  Without any thought, everyone knew their position and exactly what it entailed.  In this case, their Divine orders were to prevent the U.S. government=s usual cover-up  by any means necessary.  
Just as the 1991 sequence of events fell into divine lockstep, a mirror of that sequence occurred when the General  (Rev. Herbert Daughtry) and a few of his grassroots soldiers took their rightful place onstage at this tribute.  With that said, special acknowledgements are extended to those first summoned by the ancestors to inspect and protect the burial site, namely Reverend Daughtry and Minister Clemson Brown.     In an emotional and determined discourse, Daughtry assailed those who dared to disrespect the sacredness of these burial grounds.  With welled eyes and a splintered voice, he recognized and thanked NYC Councilman Charles Barron, Eloise Dicks, Ollie McClean, Juanita Thomas and the late Sonny Carson as he told how these soldiers used their bodies as shields against the mighty bulldozers in the fight to preserve with dignity and respect the remains of our African ancestors.  Obviously, the ancestors are mighty spirits; their Awill is done@ and their remains are returned to their rightful place of rest in lower Manhattan C now a national monument.
The ARites of Ancestral Return@ was a fitting tribute to those ancestors whose uncovered stories spoke volumes about African humanity.  Not only was this humanity exhibited in the deliberately decorated buried remains, but also in the cooperation and coordination among the carefully chosen team through whom these stories unfold.  Watching Drs. Cole, Blakey, Medford and Perry collaborate on how best to proceed with the intricately hand-carved coffins containing the remains of a man, woman and two children (representing the total 419 human remains), was more than a humbling experience. 
This distinguished group appeared to be the ancestors themselves, speaking in tongues that only they understood.  Indeed, the seriousness of their facial expressions was almost frightening, as we would begin to question our own worthiness of being among the remains, participating in and witnessing this spiritual history unfold.  But be reminded that the ancestors have made no mistakes.  They imprinted these experiences on our consciousness to ensure that we never forget the power ied; of past truths, for they always come to light; and with this in mind, we all revelled in the joy and pain of the moments, knowing that we too had been chosen as witnesses and conveyers of the messages.

No, the ancestors have made no mistakes!  That was evident when Dr. Blakey at a press conference, prior to the ceremony, held up two volumes of truth documents memorializing the lives and deaths of those buried at the African burial site.  His findings confirm the economic value and impact of Africans and African culture in the building of this nation.  At one point during questioning, Dr. Blakey, clearly overwhelmed with emotion, took a long pause as he expressed his sorrow about the high rate of infant mortality and the inhumane way in which the majority of those buried had died.  Dr. James Donaldson, Dean of Howard=s Art Department, and Master of the press event, watched supportingly, as these revelations invoked bouts of emotion for everyone in the room, at one time or another.  But, most importantly, they compelled us to tell the story so others will never forget that the truth is still unfolding, and the true American history is yet to be written.
The historical finding of the African burial site, and the unprecedented calling it inspired, sparked a fire that has resurrected an old civil rights movement that seemingly had died.  In spite of covert actions by the U.S. Government to drive nails into its coffin, the ancestors are speaking out.  They are saying:  ANever forget the Holocaust of slavery when millions of our people died; never forget that we were lynched, beaten and murdered C all supported by the U.S. Congress only a few years ago;  never forget our contributions of America=s infrastructure; never forget the drugs and guns imposed in our neighborhoods and killing our children; never forget racial profiling or the glass ceiling C nor Bush=s presidential brief to the Supreme Court!@
Cries of the ancestors are time and time again silenced through legislative processes, but the truth always finds a way to reveal itself.  Perhaps the ancestors have decided that it is time to alter their approach to mirror that of the oppressor C a covert psychological approach through repetitive media and imagery.  This remains to be seen. 
In any case, to forget the past would mean that we have no real future.  Therefore, we must grab hold of the truths revealed by the ancestors through this 11-year séance, and utilize them to advance the task of rewriting history.  The true American history will include the intimate role of Africans in making this nation great!  All must know of the torn ligaments, diseases and early deaths of these people due to intensive labor and malnourishment.  We must not be ashamed of these truths, but absorb strength from them, as the ancestors intended.
We salute and thank the team of distinguished black Americans who so diligently towed both the burden and the honor of conveying the messages from the ancestors.  We will never forget what you have done for us.

I could not help but to overhear the conversation of the young twenty-something woman that was sitting next to me on the bus. The passion of her conversation caused her to speak a little louder than I believe she had intended. She was speaking with another female passenger and attempting to explain the nasty gash across her right cheek. Because I was only getting pieces of the discussion, my first thought was that her mate caused the injury. To my surprise, it was not her husband that gave her the bruise, the permanent scar was caused by her son.
Based on the discussion, her son was angry that she was unable to purchase a Christmas gift that he was looking forward to receiving. She went on to say that she was afraid of him and that on more than one occasion she called the police when he refused to come home until the early- morning hours.  Then she stated, AI don=t know what I am going to do when he starts junior high school next year.@ If my math was correct that would make her child approximately 11-years-old.
Upon hearing this, her travel companion made the comment, AWell, let=s hope in junior high school some of the teachers can work miracles with him.@
Her comment touches on a major aspect of what has been in the headlines of late. And that is school violence.  Too many parents subscribe to the theory that the only energy that should go into childrearing is dropping their children off at the doorsteps of the local public schools. The issues surrounding school violence has as much to do with what happens in the household as what does not occur in the classroom.
The problem of violence in our schools has reached an alarming level and we must take a pause in our hectic lives to devise a real plan to bring it back into control. That plan cannot be created by school officials alone. It must include every aspect of our community, including those who do not have children in the public school system. Let us not forget that you cannot say public school system without saying Black and brown students. These children are our future and if we like it or not they are our responsibility.
This endeavor is no different from the commitment that parents of prior generations embraced. We should not allow time to rewrite the lines on how many of us behaved as children. I am sure there are still some walls at Intermediate School 8, where I was a student, that has my creative literature written on them. If we all look back into our adolescent years, I am sure there are moments in time that we wish we did not behave the way we did. In fact, we are not who we are because of our own doings, but because those adults of the time did not give up on us. Much of our success stems from an adult=s unrelenting desire to see us achieve in spite of ourselves.
We must match that passion with the young people of today. It is going to take more energy than dropping our children off at the doorsteps of the local school and praying that someone works a miracle.
100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care has committed their support to this challenge by conducting a series of AParents Empowered to End School Violence Workshops.@ The forums    which will be held in conjunction with Civil Rights Attorney Norman Siegel, will focus on supplying parents with proactive measures, that they can take to combat school violence. In far too many cases, parents feel as though they must sit on the sideline while their children are the victim of violence. Members of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care will use their law enforcement and legal experience to empower parents to play an active role in ending school violence. The workshops will be broken down into three basic components. The first phase will demonstrate to parents the type of  items that are being used as weapons by young people. Following that display, we will then instruct parents on what to do when their children are the victims                                    of violence. Included in this instruction will be tips on how to anonymously report those students who are carrying dangerous weapons. The last phase will be conducted by Civil Rights Attorney Norman Siegel and it will include legal instruction concerning school violence.
To stem the tide of violence in our school system, we must ensure that parents, police and school officials all are reading from the same page. This can only be achieved by bringing the parents into the discussion.